We Are All Someone's Child

I was driving on the two lane country highway to the small town hospital to say good-bye to Grandma Betty when I promised myself that I would not cry. She was dying—even she knew she didn’t have much time left—and I wasn’t going to upset her with my tears. This would be the last time I would see her, and I was determined to make sure it was full of love.

It was barely nine in the morning when I pulled into the parking lot next to the tiny, one-story hospital. I went inside, not sure where I was going when I wandered into a large group of Johnson relatives huddled in the hallway. The news wasn’t good. There was nothing else the doctors could do for Grandma, so we were going to make her comfortable and keep her company until she left us.

I left my dad and his siblings in the hallway and went into Grandma’s room. I was wearing my glasses, which were not familiar to her, so I spoke first out of concern she wouldn’t know who I was. Immediately recognizing my voice, she turned to the nurse who was combing her hair and proudly announced that her only granddaughter had come to visit.

I reminded myself of the promise I made in the car: no tears.

I took the comb from the nurse and continued fixing Grandma Betty’s short silvery-grey hair. It was unevenly cut and without any real style. I could tell my aunt had been cutting it at home again. I chuckled as I noticed a few strands of black woven into the silver and grey. I am the second oldest of Grandma Betty’s 10 grandchildren and remember when she had a full head of coal black hair. I struggled to remember when she turned grey, couldn’t and gave up.

I put the comb down and moved over to the chair on the other side of her bed. I sat and made small talk with her, telling her about the long drive (“No, Grandma, I did not see any deer and I will make sure to watch for them when I leave. I don’t want to hit one, either”) and listening to her tell me about my brothers visiting her the previous day. She clutched my hand and repeated weakly, “I am so happy to see you.” The same phrase she always said to me whenever I visited.

No tears.

The morning dragged on into afternoon as my family crowded into Grandma Betty’s tiny hospital room. She was the only patient in the room, so we took advantage and spread out. I tried to ignore the obvious struggle for breath coming from the hospital bed and laughed when she scolded my Uncle Mike about trying to access his work servers on his laptop. She even apologized to the nurses he had bring a long cable into her room in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt to log in. “My son and his computer,” she said, shaking her head.

After an uneventful lunch of hospital food, my four-year-old cousin, the youngest of Grandma Betty’s 10 grandchildren, arrived with his father. My mother always claims Sean “livens the place up” wherever he goes, and he didn’t fail to disappoint. He jabbered on about his day at summer camp when he suddenly stopped and stared at Grandma Betty. “When are you coming home, Meme?” he asked her, using the nickname all 10 of us called her whenever we first learned to talk and struggled to pronounce grandma. “I’ll be home soon,” she replied. “It won’t be much longer.”

No tears.

Afternoon turned into evening and the breathing got more and more labored. The oxygen mask was worn for longer periods of time and she struggled to stay awake. I sat in the chair next to her bed and held onto her hand. It was warm, just like it always was. She started to slip in and out of consciousness. I would put my mouth next to her ear and say, “I love you, Meme” and feel her squeeze my hand. Eventually, the squeezing stopped.

The nurse came into the room to check on Grandma Betty and announced that we had just a few hours. I practiced deep breathing like I was taught in yoga to stay calm and to keep the tears away. She was struggling and in pain. It was time.

But it wasn’t. Grandma came back to us. The oxygen mask came off and she leaned back into the pillows and closed her eyes. The struggle against death was exhausting.

I calmly walked over to her bed and stood next to her, taking her right hand in mine. This was the hand with all five fingers intact, unlike the left one I’d been clutching off and on all day. The left one had two stubs for the middle and ring fingers after a childhood accident with an axe. That’s why no knives or anything sharp were allowed around her grandchildren. I clutched her hand tight, bent forward until my mouth was next to her ear. I told her I loved her, that I admired her fight and knew she was in pain and that it was OK to let go. My voice was strong and steady.

I kissed her forehead and walked over to my father and watched as the family followed my lead and whispered their private good-byes to the woman who was the foundation of our family. I told my father to go. He seemed hesitant. I said go while she’s still with us and can hear.

My big, strong father—the man who can fix anything, whether it’s a broken bicycle or a broken heart—walked over to his mother’s bedside and took her hand. He began whispering in her ear when I felt the sob rise in my chest. Watching my father—my strong father—tell her mother good-bye was too much. I couldn’t stop the sob as it loudly escaped from me. It was so strong and sudden that it didn’t sound like a sob—more like the barking sea lions I’d seen the week before at the zoo—and it caused my Aunt Pat, the oldest of my father’s two sisters to look at me in alarm. It was my Aunt Peg, the sister who at 40 is closer in age to me than my father, who came running over and hugged me close, allowing the hot tears to spill onto her t-shirt as the sobs I fought all day came rushing forward. I finally found the one thing my father couldn’t fix, and it ripped my heart out.