Each time I sit down and try to write about this, my eyes
well up with tears. Thinking about it makes
my heart feel as if it’s being wrung out. Putting such sorrow into
words is almost unbearable, but I feel that I need to.
My grandmother, the person who single-handedly brought us
up and taught us the most valuable lessons in life, is fading away from us. That
fiery, cantankerous woman of abrasive opinions and imperious wisdom, the parent
I grew up with, is rapidly, painfully disappearing, leaving only a silhouette of
who she was. Her abrupt mental and physical decline came as a surprise to
us. Perfectly fine just a couple of
months ago, she’s now altered and beyond our reach.
I knew that she’s changed when she stopped nagging me
about my leaving the fold. She’s grown so thin and frail and her memory is
almost completely gone. She doesn’t even recognize me if I don’t introduce
myself. Whenever I visit her at my mother’s place, she tells me how she hates
it there and begs me to accompany her to travel back home to Baguio. I try to explain to her that she can no
longer live alone. Imploring her to
continue living with my mother so she’ll be surrounded with family and taken
care of has become a mournful litany that falls on deaf, uncomprehending ears.
For the past few years we paid her a visit only once or twice
a year. Every time I give her a call she never fails to ask me when our next
visit will be. Now I regret all those years that we, wrapped up in our own lives,
have taken her for granted. Why didn’t I spend more time with her before? Why
didn’t I talk to her when my words could still have left some meaning in her
mind? It is a sad, horrible truth that
she’d be gone from us shortly. And I wish that through that haze of confusion, she’d
recognize us, her grandchildren who have failed so miserably in showing her how
much we love her.
2 comments:
It'a a tough time for you all, I'll pray for you.
Thank you, @Windmill.
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