xxxvi.
two years ago i visited my grandmother with my aunt. we entered the memory care center where memories were lost, everybody cared, and nobody knew why. for five years, i watched a kind woman erode into paranoia until she slipped into nothing. angry beyond language, terror beyond time. there was nothing we could do to carry her forward. a mind, dying against its will. a body, breaking. the soul in-between.
i held her hand between my hands and wondered if i was in the wrong when i told her “i love you” for the last time, knowing she might not understand. all she could say was “i know,” and i've wondered if that was her way of saying “i love you” in return. somewhere behind her eyes, where words burned to ash, she found the only words she had left to reply. ashes, to ashes, to an empty gaze. i left, saw her lucidity fade, and she turned to dust like a dying star.
two weeks later her heart stopped with no warning. i was the last grandchild to see her alive that last morning. the last to see her, sit with her, watch her struggle to exist in a room of strangers she knew we weren’t supposed to be strangers. i left, and it was like God closed the door on last goodbyes.
two days after i saw my father alive, he died. twenty four hours post-departure, the window of grace became smaller, and sharper, and once again death walked in my wake, leaving me wondering if my presence has become a chapter heading for my family. when i come, when i go, when i leave. it marks an event in bold writing, and twice, i’ve left a death day behind me. can coincidence recur thrice?
when i left my stepmother’s home, our family dog was unwell. his downturn of health has become so steep i fear my next visit will turn a new page, and when i say goodbye, he will too. it’s not that these things aren’t inevitable — but the gratitude i have for last words is soured by never knowing they were the last. never knowing the day, or the hour. will things continue to fall apart when i leave? is this all because i never stayed?
i desperately need to say goodbyes. i hate lacking closure. i had none for ten years when i moved away from home, escaping through distance and phones, trying to make space through states with thick boundaries, hoping i'd be fixed when they found me again. when i went home again. and i don't think i won anything but the guilt left behind; however illogical, it haunts all i find. to be missed, far away
now i treat every visit like a final stay. every hello like my last meeting, every hug like a last embrace, every kiss on the head the last time i’ll see your face because there are no guarantees, and i feel like i can see the end of everyone i love when i look into their eyes. why am i the last seated at an empty table, left to love and left behind? i know it’s not reality: but i worry that there’s something following me, wherever i go. am i a harbinger of death and change? or does everyone wait until i go?
