October 30, 2005
The giant white Calla Lilies, I pointed out to her, were the same flowers which she held on the day of her wedding 67 years ago to the day. She smiled at me as she slowly reached out toward the flowers and scolded me for having spent so much money."You need something to brighten this room besides my sweet smile, Grandma," I stated with a voice slightly broken by tears.
Her eyes closed and her mouth drooped ajar as she fell back into a light repose. I watched her from the couch and could not help but feel that she seemed to look so very old, so pale and so fragile. The wrinkles about her mouth held hard against her sweet and loving face and no where in the room could the sound of breath be heard. I was afraid to hold her hand as I watched her small and slender fingers gently toy with the edge of the blanket. I thought that I might break them, if I dared attempt to tough even with greatest amount of care. We let her doze in and out of conciousness.
My mother and father stood up and sat down, crossed their legs and folded their arms, remained silent for awhile and then began a mindless chatter that seemed to drift off always so entirely incomplete. It's as though we were not really there. In the hospital, with my Grandmother, watching her as she tried, even then, to accomodate all of us.
She woke up long enough to mention that she needed to use the bathroom. Her nurse, Sally, was no where to be found and a nearby attendant did her best to help the 88 year old woman out of bed. With her legs swung around, my Grandmother relented and informed the attendant that she merely wanted to lie back down, just for a little while, before attempting to get up again to use the fascilities. Finally, Sally appeared at the door and I, alone, remained seated upon the couch next to my Grandmother's bed while they tried to reposition her back into her hospital bed.
She had fallen the day before. When my cousin Scott called her that afternoon to inform her that he would be dropping in later and my Grandmother did not answer, he began to worry and drove directly to her condo. He found her on the floor in her den, where she had apparently been lying since early in the morning, dehydrated and hungry. Scott and his wife made her some food, insisted that she drink plently of water and carefully tended to her late into the night. Finally, it was decided that she should be brought to the hospital and all that the rest of us knew was that she had hurt her ankle during the fall. But I was not expecting what I saw when I entered the hospital room at 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning.
Her condition suggested more than a mere fall. Her breathing was irregular and the very life of all our hearts was completely drained from her visage. And so, when she began to gasp for air and the nurse and the attendant requested that I might leave the room, I began to fall myself. I hung against the wall outside her room and listened as my mother and father said something about the monitor outside her room. Then we heard the loud voices behind the blinds from her window.
"Marian. Marian? MARIAN. Can you hear me?"
Almost in the same instant that my legs began to noodle beneath me, I peered into the doorway of my Grandmother's room as her own legs begin to shake and jolt in such an abnormal fashion that my senses could not carry the message quickly enough to my brain. That's when the lights began to flash and alarms began to sound and nurses and attendants began to scurry and no one knew what in the world could be the matter.
She had another heart attack. She had another heart attack just like the one her doctor stated she surely had the day before which caused her sudden fall.
I thought I was there merely going to bring my Grandmother a book to read while she recovered. I thought the flowers would cheer her room while she sat up straight in bed working on a crossword puzzle from the paper. I thought that we would laugh about my latest article in the school newspaper or gossip about the family as we waited for Wheel of Fortune to come on later that evening. I thought I would be smuggling in some good food for the woman who I knew would not tolerate the rations provided by the hospital.
I had no idea I had arrived just in time to say good bye.
The rest of the world quieted around us as 11:00 a.m. declared the time upon the wall. Machine after machine was wheeled away before our eyes and my beautiful Grandmother lay stoic on her bed; every sign of life dismissed save for the tube which yet protruded from her mouth. My big boquet of flowers stood out like an offensive brilliance of life against the dull gray canvis that became her room as we three of us held each other in woeful weeps.
But, after all, it was her 67th wedding anniversay and perhaps my Grandfather was just beginning to miss her so. We'll miss you, too, Gramma. Thank you for taking care of us all.