The room we walked into was small but nicely furnished for a hospital waiting room. There were several couches, a tv, a computer, and a fridge in the corner. We set down our bags and settled in. We didn’t have to wait long before my grandpa walked in to get us.

My mom, brother, and I followed my grandpa down the hall and into my grandma’s hospital room. I was scared of what I would see lying in there. I stopped in the doorway not wanting to go any farther.

“Go on,” my grandpa said, “you can talk to her.” I walked forward with my brother.

My grandma had always been so strong, but laying there she looked like she might stop breathing at any moment.

I tried to form words but my throat had closed up and nothing would come out. After several long moments of silence I finally managed to croak out a few syllables.

“Hi Grandma,” I squeaked. She didn’t respond.

“You can hold her hand if you want,” my uncle Bill said from his chair on the other side of the bed.

The truth was I didn’t want to touch her. 

She was small and bloated from the infection working its way through her intestines. Her skin was almost the same color as the white sheets on her bed.

I thought if I touched her I might break her.

Just days ago the doctors had given her months to live with the cancer. Now she only had hours, days at the most. Finally, I willed myself to reach out and grab her hand. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Hunter, you came,” she wheezed in a dreamy voice. I waited for her to say more but she had slipped back into her morphine-induced dreamland.

She had recognized my brother, Hunter, but not me. I was hurt; she had always liked him better.

I stood there a few more minutes before turning towards the door.

“I’m ready to go,” I said, having to force the words out as my throat was still tight.

“Ok, sweetheart,” my mom said. We walked out of the hospital room and back down the hall to the room designated for family members of patients. I sat down and started reading, using the book as a tool to shut out the world.

The rest of the day went by in, more or less, a blur. My cousins and other relatives came in and out, a nurse offered us ice cream, people asked me if I wanted to see my grandma again, I decline. I wanted to remember her at her best, not her worst.

Eventually we left and went to a hotel near the hospital. Almost immediately after we arrived I crawled into bed. I didn’t fall asleep, though. Too many thoughts were clamoring for my attention.

Memories of Christmas at Grandma’s house played in my head. Weeks in the summer spent in their big log house. Cards with checks and little doodles in them for every holiday. Eventually I managed to fall into a restless sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the phone ringing. There is only one reason the phone would be ringing at two in the morning. I waited silently as my mom answered the phone, for my fears to be confirmed.

“She’s gone,” my mom said after hanging up the phone. I didn’t cry or get upset because I didn’t miss her.

She had tried to be part of my life, but we had never been close. She had always seemed distant. I realized that the reason we hadn’t been close was because my mother and she had not been close. It was because of this that she had seemed so distant.

I rolled over, and went back to sleep.