When I got there, Uncle Mike was making bacon. Two pounds of it. Because someone had to do something. We had to keep up some semblance of functioning. Otherwise the quiet of the house would swallow us. There was only the hum of the oxygen machine and the sizzle of fat in the pan.
The hugs upon entry were an acknowledgment of our shared pain, a support. Aunt Cindy was crying again. Grandpa was dazed. He wandered through the house in the same red sweatshirt he wore when everything was alright. He sat in his chair. I think he was trying to read, but his eyes slid off the page and turned inwards.
I paced in the kitchen. Past the blue Formica counters, past the trash compactor. I stopped and looked out the window. Mom and Dad and Becky weren’t there yet. Uncle Mike’s Jeep was there. Grandpa’s red truck was there. The nurse would be there soon. There was nothing for us to do but wait.
I watched the clock on the oven. 9:37. It was one of the old-fashioned ones, where the numbers turn on a wheel. Every time a minute passed, a new number slid into the display with a click. So the clicks. The sizzle. And the hum of the oxygen. Everything else was quiet.
I went in for a moment to see Grandma. She was slanted on the bed, eyes half-open, mouth agape. Aunt Cindy was sitting on the bed beside her, holding her hand. A new sound: labored gasps. They came rattling and tearing through her throat and out her slack mouth. Each breath was so painful, so infrequent, that I half feared it would be her last. I leaned over, kissed her cheek. She didn’t move. She didn’t respond at all. Not even her eyes flickered.
“Leslie is here, Mom. And Dave and Kathy and Becky will be here soon,” Aunt Cindy said loudly. As if she could penetrate the morphine haze with mere volume. There were tears in her eyes. In situations like this, some people cry. Aunt Cindy is one of them. I’m not. I felt I was intruding, so I stood and slipped silently back into the kitchen.
“How are you doing kiddo?” Uncle Mike asked me, gentle rather than jovial today.
“I’m alright. How is everyone? How is Grandma?”
“We’re all having a rough time of it. Especially your Grandpa. Grandma slipped further last night. We think she has stabilized for the time being, but it’s only going to go downhill from here. Her left lung has collapsed completely, and her right one is severely compromised. She’s slipping pretty fast. We had a really rough morning.”
I nodded. What do you say to something like that? In the pan, the bacon was swimming in oil. He prodded it a little with a fork.
“Is there something I can do to help?”
“Well, we’re making breakfast. You can take care of that bacon there.” He nodded towards a pile of it, steaming on a paper towel.
I ripped off another towel and patted as much oil off of the bacon as I could.
“Patting it down doesn’t make that much a difference really, but at least it makes us feel a little better about eating it,” Uncle Mike said.
I smiled a wry little smile.
“We’re going to have a lot of visitors today. I figure bacon is useful. It can be breakfast or a BLT or a bacon cheeseburger.” He picked up one of the cooled pieces and took a bite.
“Mmm, that’s good. That’s why I don’t eat this stuff.”
“So who all is coming today?” I wrapped the bacon in foil and put it in the oven.
“Joy and Chase, Sunny, Buddy, Christy, and Keith, your mom and dad and sister. Us. Cori will be here tonight. She’s flying in from St. Kit’s. Last time she called she was in Fort Lauderdale. There are a lot of us. It tires Robbie out. She thinks she needs to entertain us, when she needs all her energy just to keep functioning. So we have to keep the visits quick. Just in for ten minutes, hold her hand, talk to her a little and back out. She’s on a lot of drugs, so she doesn’t really respond much, but she knows we’re here.”
I looked at the clock on the oven again. 10:07. The nurse would be here soon. And my family. I turned from the stove to look out the window, just in time to see a white truck pull up.
“The nurse is here!”
Uncle Mike came to the window. A twenty-something year old man climbed out of the truck. He had a clip-board
“That’s just a delivery guy.” He went out to the family room. I could hear him talking to my grandpa.
“Why don’t you go see what the delivery guy wants?”
My grandpa got slowly slowly to his feet and went out through the sliding kitchen door, across the deck, and down to the driveway. When he came back a few minutes later, he was thin-lipped and carrying a bouquet. He went in to my grandma.
I went back to stand beside the stove.
“He’s having a hard time of it,” Uncle Mike said quietly.
“Yeah.”
He kept cooking more and more bacon. I wandered through the house. I looked at my cell phone to see if Mom had called. She hadn’t. I looked at pictures on the wall. My great-grandparent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. My parents were newly-engaged and smiling. Cori, now a veterinarian, was pigtailed and pinafored on Aunt Cindy’s lap. Grandpa still had hair. He was holding Grandma’s hand. Nana was smiling. I stared at all the faces, at once familiar and yet strange in their youth.
I moved to a different wall. My grandparent’s own fiftieth wedding anniversary. Everyone was pretty much unchanged from there. It wasn’t that long ago. We still all remember how good the turkey was at the reception. The only people who have changed really are the kids. In the picture, I’m young and awkward. All knees and elbows and eyebrows and braces. My punk rock sister was wearing a pink dress with frilly ankle socks. So we had changed. But not much else. Only Grandma now. The emaciated, gasping woman in the bedroom was not the white-haired lady smiling so proudly from the photos.
The slam of a car door brought me dashing to the window. A silver truck pilled up. My family climbed out of it. Dad’s face was drawn. Everyone trooped up the stairs, across the deck and into the kitchen. My mom was helpful and bright, as she always is. Dad looked carved from stone. He and my grandpa hugged. They never hug, those two stoic old men.
The nurse came, purple and gentle and smiling. Aunt Joy and Uncle Chase came. Christy called. She said she was bringing the wonton soup Grandma had asked for. Uncle Mike said she was a girl after his own heart.
The nurse was to discuss the situation of Grandma’s health. She took the immediate people downstairs. My grandpa, Aunt Joy, Uncle Mike and Aunt Cindy, Dad. Mom and I finished making breakfast for everyone. She made Potatoes O’Brien from a bag on the counter. I scrambled a dozen eggs. Productivity prevents grief.
Everyone else came back upstairs. Tight-faced or teary-eyed accordingly. People sat down at the table, pushed the eggs around, ate a few mouthfuls of potatoes, stared out the windows. I went into Grandma’s room again. Aunt Joy was there holding her sister’s hand, but when I came in, she got up and left.
I looked down at Grandma. Her nightgown was crooked, the buttons running down one breast instead of straight down the middle. My fastidious grandma, who never had a hair out of place. Her arms were bruised with the IV tubes, and the oxygen tubes made her nose bleed. I sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Grandma, don’t be scared,” I wanted to say. “I’m not sure about the whole heaven thing, but God’s a pretty cool guy. He’ll take care of you.”
“You have always been so good to us. We all appreciate you so much,” I wanted to say.
“Goodbye, Grandma. I love you,” I said. I kissed her cheek. I got up and left.
Yesterday, my grandma died.
