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I guess I thought that grandmas lived forever. Or they passed away when you were young. They didn’t live in a nursing home, not in my mind at least. My grandma does. I visit and I write, yet the look on her face makes me want to cry. Not only for her, but for myself.
For I always saw grandparents as old people. Now I see myself in the future, wondering if I too will sit and stare all day, hoping that one person out of a dozen will write to me.
Will I wonder what I did wrong? Did I say something, or was it when my body gave way to old age that they stopped caring?
I always enter her hospital-clean room with lots of laughs and one too many hugs. So afraid that this will be the last time. Yet she remains sitting there, each time eager for my hugs, starved for them. In a way we both are trying to give and get as many hugs as we can, as the clock is against us.
In her mind family members who live so close are dead. In my mind I wondered, why can’t they see she is the same women that hugged us, laughed with us, and had her proud Indian stubborness that we all laughed at but loved because it was her?
I drive the distance to see her not to be the good grandchild, but to remind myself: she drove the distance for me, and still would if she could. I drive to see her, wondering to myself, how easily could it be me sitting in her place one day?
I sit with her and we look at the yesteryears in her pictures. Her only son, my father, now passed on. Did she want to outlive him? No. We laugh at times we had with my grandfather. He is waiting for her too. One day, not just yet, she will be with him.
I thank God that I have this time, our time. It's grandma and me for now. Her eyes say what her mouth won’t let her. She is a proud women. I can only hope to be like her.
I’m trying not to wait to say good bye. I want to say hello! Say I love you to her face, look in her eyes and see that twinkle. It's down deep in her soul, but I feel it.
I embrace her and talk with her, seeing her for who she was and still is: a beautiful women that I love very much. I sometimes wonder if Grandma knows how I feel. Then I watch her and see her sitting there telling me a story, her eyes bright with a devil-be-gone look. She knows. I can’t spend the time that I would like to with her. So I give her one too many hugs, and send her letters each week.
Watching her having to live in a nursing home, I’ve learned that she is still teaching me to be patient and to always be strong. I cry when I leave only because I wish I could do more. As time goes on, I’ve learned that I can do so much, but I can’t stop the clock from ticking. I think I will go see her again, and give her one too many hugs.
The story One More Hug is Copyright 1998 by Dana Dee Green.
The collection of works called Fish Eggs For The Soul is Copyright 1998 by Brian Rickman.
Copy edited by Sara Fawbush, editor of The Young Writer's Collection.