ASSIGNMENTS:
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Laurel
Cambridge, Ontario CANADA
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REPORTS:
PREVIOUS NEXT
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For a 91 year old, you don't have many wrinkles. Maybe it's the gravitational pull tugging at your skin as you lay at a 45 degree angle. But I never really noticed any laugh lines on you growing up either. Maybe it's because you didn't laugh; you only chuckled quietly.
I lean over the side of the twin bed and the bars that hold you in like a newborn, place my face close to your ear and say, "Grandpa, it's Laurel." You open your icy eyes that I unfortunately did not inherent, process my face that's features are far more angular than your own, and purse your lips together and out waiting for a kiss.
Boy, you were angry when she went first. Our status of 'family' quickly declined to the term of 'you people' and our already lack-of conversation was whittled away to the apple cores. When she went, with enough wrinkles for the two of you, it was clear to us then that you were going to die of bitterness. Now we can see that you're dying of a broken heart, cleverly disguised as cancer of the everything. And for someone who never said that phrase 'I love you', dying of a broken heart is a wonderful testament to the dormant love that she could wake in everyone she met.
I think right now is the most time we've spent alone together, you know. Maybe you don't know. I hold your hand anyways, whether you can feel my long fingers on yours is unknown. It's June; you were fated to expire with your car insurance.
We sit in the small room, with only two sounds: an oxygen machine for you, and an old fan sitting in front of the window for me.
And, for once, I don't have to struggle for something to say.
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