I didn’t know much about my father’s mother. I knew she was an alcoholic. I knew she smoked enough to make steam trains jealous. I also knew she used to yell my grandfather enough to make him run away.


When I learned of the consequences that forced me to spend my summer with my father’s mother, I was infuriated.
‘I don’t understand why I have to spend my whole summer with her. If she caused her own husband to run away, then I wonder what she’s going to do to me!’
My exhausted father grunted. ‘Yes, I know, but she is my mother and she thinks she’s going to die of her lung cancer soon, so she wants to see my kid for the first time.’
‘Dad,’ I replied, icicles hanging from the piercing sentence. ‘She’s been saying she’s going to die “soon” for the last five years. It still doesn’t mean I want to see her.’

When I had first met my father’s mother in her bed, the initial thing I noticed was the smell. It reeked of the ubiquitous existence of sickness in the geriatric ward of a hospital. A stern look was plastered on her face as I dragged myself across the room to greet her. All of the childhood fantasies I had conjured about meeting my father’s mother for the first time vanished. The hug was awkward and askew, my one free hand loosely patting her shoulder, and she returned the gesture without the presence of maternal warmth or affection.


The weeks trickled by slowly and uneventfully, a sempiternal summer. A live-in nurse cared for Edith during most of my waking hours, and eventually, all of them. Her condition was worsening. Because of this, the nearest Pulmonolgist visited the house every five days, and she was even taken in for two tests. When the results were completed four weeks later, the doctor and nurse asked me to sit down for “a chat.”

‘Anna, Edith’s lung cancer has advanced so far that it has metastasized to her brain. Her verbal reports of dizziness, headaches, and blurriness of vision match the results from both diagnostic exams. She doesn’t have much longer. I have talked to the nurse here and we have both agreed that, since you are eighteen, you are mature enough to make the decision on whether or not to operate. We both suggest that, at her age and current state, just letting her live the rest of her life would be ideal,’ the doctor explained quietly, as if trying to avoid Edith listening.

‘Stop talking,’ I said, leaving the room and going to Edith’s. I saw her turn her head to the open window as I leaned on the doorway, a sad smiled played across my lips. As subtle as stealing a wallet in a quick hustle, she shook her head. Calling into the next room, I said, ‘No. The surgery will not be done.’


A week before my departure back home, I was woken violently in the night by the nurse. Blood splatters stained the front of her uniform in a vivid spray. I had known. It was time. When I glimpsed at Edith on the bed, I began seeing her again for the first time. She really was my father’s mother.
‘Anna,’ she wheezed out in a hoarse whimper. ‘Anna, I’m going to die. Hold my hand.’

I saw the weakness in her eyes as I walked forward with tremulous hands that joined with hers. A cold sweat had formed as a barrier between our skin, the fusion of mature and puerile, and of young and old. She had yet to speak her last two words.

When she did, she shut her eyes and opened her faintly bloodstained lips. ‘I love,’ she gasped. She then fell limp.
A lacuna punctured the air. I didn’t know what my father’s mother meant! I shook her shoulders, screaming at her for the final word. I hadn’t realized I was falling until I hit the ground, hands hammering the rigid floor and tarnishing the wood with my tears.  

‘You,’ quietly whispered the nurse behind me, mascara tears creating vertical tracks along her cheeks. I looked up, sorrow and confusion masked upon my face.

Clearing her throat, she began again. ‘She wanted to say that she loved you.’


I don’t know much about my father’s mother. I knew she was an alcoholic. I knew she smoked enough to make steam trains jealous.

But I also knew that all of those things didn’t matter to me. I knew that my grandmother loved me.