The Twenty-Third of June A Little Before 2AM
I went to see her a few weeks ago to tell her that we were having a boy and to give her a print of Sophie to keep in her room. She had me put the print where she could see it from her bed. Then she told me “It’s a long life but it has to end.”
They told us she had about 24 hours left. We stayed with her all day, her caretaker, my mother, my aunt, my wife, even Sophie came to see her. She was never left alone. She would have turned 97 this September.
I tried to sleep in the den but the chair kept closing up on me. I went down the hall to sleep on my grandfather’s old bed and stopped in to see her. Mom was asleep in a chair next to the bed. For a second I thought grandma’s eyes were open and I put my hand on her arm. I had trouble sleeping but mom woke me up a little after 2am. She thought grandma had gone and wanted to be sure so I went to check on her. She wasn’t breathing and had no pulse, so we called the service and waited with her until the nurse showed up. The official time of death is whenever the nurse declares it. Then the man from the funeral home came and took her body. I took mom to my house and put her to bed on the couch. I couldn’t sleep so I went to work on these. All made the day she died.
It’s not a visit to grandma’s house without Cheetos. Even on Christmas Eve.
The kitchen is the most important room in the house.
The lamp that I fixated on when we lived here after the divorce.
Mom’s dog sleeping in the garden below grandma’s living room window. That dog loved her.
The butterflies in the greenhouse what were my daughter’s favorite color.
The overwhelming green in her garden.
We ate toast and had coffee while the nurse did her thing.
Something I used to play with as a child, made out of a tree from this house.
Family photos in the living room.
Mom came in as I was writing this. She couldn’t sleep either. It’s almost 7am and we are going to get coffee. I’ll come back to this later.
