At the end of my visit with my grandma, she held out a bear. It was about the size of my palm, and she had beaded every inch of it. I recognized this bear, it made me tear up every time I looked at it.
I was there, when she first started making it. I would walk to her house during my lunch break at rally to come visit with her and my grandpa. My grandpa usually would hum some oldie song, say I "looked beautiful," and always talk kindly about everyone, even my mother. My grandma and I, we spoke about everything. I kept coming, everyday for our lunch date. My grandpa got slower, his memory started fading. The doctors told us this would happen, but I didn't expect the disease to progress so fast. My grandma kept beading, and we just kept talking. But my grandpa, stopped humming. I came one day to find my uncle there, he told me about how my grandpa had to go to the doctors, that it wasn't safe for him to be at home anymore.
When I came back the next day, my grandma was there, and we did everything normal, except with out my grandpa. We found a note, it was a goodbye note. He knew he wouldn't be able to remember all of us soon, he knew he was dying. It was his final goodbye. I was there to see my grandma cry. That's the saddest thing I've ever seen, someone to be forced apart from a loved one. I began to cry too. After summer ended, I stopped going to see her. She kept beading, and kept visiting my grandpa. Until his last dying breath. So as I hold that beaded bear, I can almost feel the hope we once had that summer. That everything was once okay. But really, in the end everyone always leaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment