Nanna

I watch silently as you melt -like a candle- into your paisley nightgown — the same kind I clung to for comfort as a kid. Your face is stagnant, and the tubes and contraptions that mummify you have become invisible to me now.

Your breath is hollow.

There is no fight left that you have not already fought. But this? This you cannot fight.

She asks if they should turn it off. Memory postpones an acknowledgement.

“Journey’s,” you whisper gently in that soft lilt that promises security and soothes like chamomile lotion. “The journey,” you clarify, swallowing deeply, “never ends. I am not afraid.”

“It is time,” the voice says again, like a deity speaking from above.

I nod.

I think I nod.

Winter was her favourite season. The barren earth, she said, gave her comfort; this is how the earth has always been. Light and dark, black on white, and the coldness, she said, enhances the embers of humanity, nudging gentle encouragement, fuelling the heart into a glowing coal.

She was a romantic, my Grandmother, always looking for the alternative, less callous explanation for all things.

I have often wondered how she survived for so long with such a strong belief in the goodness of human nature and remained true to her vision of it, right until the end.

Although I knew it, I did not think it would come so soon.

The voice mutters platitudes, soft to aid the transition, “It is for the best — there will be no pain.” But it only adds to the horror of it all.

It drowns me in an ocean of sound and light, and the crashing of waves against the rocks. I am flailing.

I don’t want to let you go. Grandmother, please stay with me.

Your last breaths are delicate, like the silken thread of a cobweb, yielding each to each, building a home in another place.

I know that you are already gone. It’s hopeless to wish for a miracle.

You are motionless, and the hollowness dwindles into nothing. You gasp loudly. Too loudly.

I know it is your last.

I savour it, swill it around in my mouth, and swallow it whole so that it will stay within me, growing into you.

“She is gone,” someone announces bluntly.

She has chosen her way, far from the starched linen of a hospital room.

She has returned to her home, high up in the mountains, far away from machines, wires, and the surly silhouette of the nurse peering into her.

The tears do not come.

She was not afraid.

Her crumpled hands become cold in mine as she begins her long walk over the white-tipped peaks towards home.

My eyes move up to your face. It is older than I remember. In the last second between life and death, you’ve aged into an eternity. Your once glistening eyes are dull, and your cheeks have sunk into a valley — the valley of your childhood.

I close my eyes and turn away. This image isn’t you. It doesn’t belong to me.

I search for you somewhere else, in a place of comfort, away from here, this sterile room.

You laugh as we mosey around the site of the fairground. The smell of sugar makes the air sickly sweet.

We walk hand in hand to the candy floss stall.

We run together. “Faster, Nanna, faster!”

We won’t miss it. We mustn’t miss it.

We make it to the Ferris wheel, breathless and filled with joy.

“You can see the whole world from here!” you shout jubilantly.

The candy floss is sweet in our mouths as we sit on the small chairs that cocoon us together. You say the wheel is special, that looking down on the world beneath us is the only way to truly understand it. You tell me to watch. Always watch.

I fly down the Helter Skelter, waving frantically at your beaming face. I want to reach the bottom.

Quickly.

Quickly. I will be in your arms again.