While writing an English Paper

In the midst of writing an English paper I got a call from my dad telling me that my Grandma is really sick and coming to the end. He wasn't that abrupt, but I had a feeling he had something bad to say. He asked me what i was doing (homework), was i in my room or in the library (in my room), do i normally do homework in my room (yes), unimportant questions with an intensity behind them that implied he wasn't interested in the answers, and eventually he told me that Ro really wasn't doing to well, that she's really very sick, and that i should give her a call. He asked me to get a pen and paper, and I did. And he asked me to write down her number, which I also did. I was starting to feel really sleepy as i was writing, but I got it down and added a little note to call her first thing in the morning, because by the afternoon she's asleep.

Then he asked me what was new. "Not much," I said. I didn't really feel like talking anymore, but i humored him. I told him a little bit about my weekend, a midnight move i went to with Zombies and costumes and music, but I felt like getting off the phone. Then he asked me how easy is it to get to Providence Airport, because if Ro did die soon, Southwest flies out of Providence directly to Philly, and that'd be the easiest way to go to her funeral. I told him that I didn't know, but that I'd look in to it, and as soon as I could I got off the phone. I felt tired. I was too tired to carry on the conversation, almost too tired to say goodbye, too tired to tell my dad I loved him.

And as i'm writing there's a car alarm going off down on the street, and the sounds of the ROTC drill practice are flying through my window, and all i want is a little bit of silence, a symbol that something big is happening, and that the world is slowing down, fatiguing with me. But the world isn't slowing down, isn't tiring, won't slow down or stop because of my mood. Ro's death is something all of us have been expecting, actually something we expected to happen a long time ago. There've been countless times when my dad has told me that Ro's health isn't doing too well, and that this saturday we should probably go up to the hospital and see her. The subtext of these conversations was always that we should see her because it might be the last time. And as a family we would visit her in the hospital and have our 30 to 40 minutes of pretty superficial conversation with her, really meaningless stuff, conversation that, while we were having it, I would think "i'll kick myself if these really are the last words I say to my grandmother." I would always make sure, then, that I said "i love you," to her as I was leaving, as a way to counter the banal conversation before it.

But Ro would always get better, and she would bounce back. And then she would get sick again, and then we would have another visit, with more meaningless conversation, and I would always say I love you, and then she would get out of the hospital, and the whole series would start over again. I started getting annoyed at my dad when he would tell me on some particular day that Ro's health was declining, and that we should probably go visit her. I was annoyed because by repeatedly preparing myself for my Grandmother's death, I had over prepared for it. These announcements and the planned visits turned something that I always assumed would be spiritual and mysterious into something that was routine. These visits, though, there was a comfort in these visits, because I knew it wouldn't be the last one. We would go and talk and kiss goodbye and then she'd get better, and then there'd be another one later.

Now we're at the end of the road, and she's not going to get better. She sleeps a lot, my dad tells me. She's been put into hospice care, and when I went home last weekend I saw the my parents had taken a bunch of Ro's artwork that had originally been hanging in her house. And, like I said, my dad wants me to call her. He said "it only has to be for a few minutes, and you don't have to talk about anything really serious. Just let her know that you love her." But is that enough? Is five minutes really enough? How can I expect to say all that I want to say in a phone call that both of us know is for the sole purpose of talking to each other before she dies? I don't call my Grandmother. I don't think I've ever talked to her on the phone when I was the one who dialed her number. Isn't that obvious, this call, this out of the blue call to talk about nothing really serious, but to tell her i love her? I don't know what i want to say. In five minutes or an hour, I don't think my language has the capacity to capture the nuances of what I feel for someone I love who is about to die, the nervousness about talking too seriously, the guilt over talking too trivially, how you're feeling, what you're trying not to feel, and the ability to focus down exactly what you want to express about them, who they are, why you love them.

Maybe I can't say why, but I will tell her I love her. It's the one thing I've been able to tell her through all of this, the only thing I know I'm capable of saying. I love you Ro. But I can't call her today, though. I have an English paper to write, and a science lab. A million little pieces of things that won't disappear because you feel a certain way.