a short story by Shea Docker
People in movies always seem to make death this beautiful yet horrendous thing that happens. Death isn’t beautiful. Not to me, at least.
My family lugged our sorrow on our backs through the damp halls of the hospital. I’d never seen a hospital so clearly before. Only in the tv shows where everything was bright and happy. Old flashing lights and tired nurses flooded the halls. I could feel myself dragging behind my family as we moved closer and closer to the room. The nurse opened the old creepy door and gestured to the six of us inside. The sunkissed yellow room opened up to us. It felt so dark in there though, almost like there was a grey haze over everything. I glanced across the room avoiding meeting her dampened body on the paper white cott in the middle of the room. I grabbed my dad’s hand in fear of what we were about to encounter. When I finally met her face, a feeling I had never felt before rushed through my body. Almost like a chill down my spine. I never want to feel this way again, I said to myself, but death is inevitable. Soon it will be my mom and dad’s turn, then my brothers, then me.
I bet you thought I was writing about my mother’s death, right? Nope. My Nana. She lived a long happy life, but when I was a little girl she was diagnosed with Alzheimers. That disease is heartbreaking. Look it up if you want, she pretty much forgets everything due to things going on with her brain. I don’t want to get into it.
My mother’s expression said it all. We had been dealing with Nana’s disease for years, but this day was different. We knew her time had come, and we didn’t want her to be gone. We mourned as we said our goodbye, holding her hand and telling her we loved her. The slow foggy haze of the machines surrounding us went unnoticed—we were too preoccupied with Nana and her well being.
My grandfather sat on the bed with her holding her hand, crying. He whispered into her ear the song “You Are My Sunshine.” I couldn’t take it, I hated seeing him sad like this. I wanted to go home and pretend everything was okay. Her deep contagious smile was morphed into a flatline on her face. No recognition or remembrance of who we were and why she was there in that cold empty room. Silent screams of the families lined up door to door cursed the halls of the hospice. Saying prayers and goodbyes to people they knew like the back of their hand. A singular tear streamed down my wet face, caressing my cheek as it fell to the floor. I squeezed her hand whispering, I love you, one last time. I looked back and saw her scrawny body laying there, knowing that would be the last time I saw her alive.
It has been a few years now. I think about her every day, wondering when my grandfather’s time will come. He has been so strong through his mourning. Putting smiles from ear to ear on our faces every time he walks into a room. Nana would have wanted that for him, not to endlessly weep away the pain. Family gatherings aren’t the same—I miss watching her dance all night long with my grandfather. The jitterbug was something notorious they did together on holidays, roaming around the living room of my aunt’s house, trying to teach the kids how to jitterbug too. We could never get it, which makes me sad, not being able to dance freely by my grandpa’s side.
I’ve decided I want to learn how to jitterbug to make him happy and to make Nana happy as she watches over us every day, whisked away by our laughter and joy.
