Grandmother's Wings

The phone rings from a distance far, far, away.

Suddenly I am awoken. The moment, between being asleep and awake, makes me feel as if my mind is a kite roaming somewhere in space but tied down to my body here on Earth. I try to pull my mind, my consciousness, back to Earth, back to my body- to be fully operative- but it seems too great a task to conduct so early in the morning.

Suddenly, a rush of adrenaline builds in me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind reality grabs the reins of consciousness, and in a split second I am acutely aware of everything, of the situation I have been so disturbed with.

My spirit drops and sinks back into my body like an anchor, from the vast and invisible ocean deep space. I open my eyes and see a hazy picture of my dimly lit room. Half awake, I turn to my left, to where the sound of the phone is coming from- and not from miles away as previously perceived in my dream state- inches away.

An alarm clock lying on a black, steel filing cabinet that I use as a bedside table obstructs my reaching the phone. Its blurry, glowing, digital marks display 7:00, in the morning.

The phone rings one more time.

I reach for it by carefully bypassing the alarm clock and answer.

"Come and relieve me," a weary voice from the other end of the receiver states.

The phone dies and I am left contemplating the fact that I was left speechless, the receiver still in my hand.

Too mystified, my mind cannot help it but concoct thousands of images of geriatric sickness, and yes, even of death itself; the call has just thrown me onstage once again unrehearsed and amidst a million spectators. What to do? Grandma’s sickness has devastated us all. Once again I am called to pull duty, to do my part, to take care of a dying woman.

Seconds pass. I still hold on to the handset, to let my aunt’s words sink in- her commandment.

Finally I reach out to the cordless phone’s recharging base and hang it up. I then attempt to get up but I cannot. It is useless. I am too tired, I lack sleep and I have an overabundant mind full of questions about my future, solutions to my economic dilemma.

I attempt to lay back, give in to my tired and aching body and doze for another minute, but no sooner a gong sound of reality ripples through my mind. This time I instantly wake and sit up. I stretch.

No more haziness, my vision regains all clarity. Yes, everything seems to be in place-- as it should be-- in my bedroom: hundreds of books, an old 386 Packard Bell computer, a nice Pioneer stereo component system that has been my best friend all through college, and a mess of things I have not yet had time to sort out.

These once prized possessions, these long cherished and valuable objects to me mean nothing amidst the presence of a dying woman, my second mother. What I have come to finally accept, understand and fight for these past seven years of soul searching in college-- characteristics of my truth and essence-- now seem to be only cheap glitter on some kindergartner’s picture and I am some sour stranger that has found it worthless, not even amusing.

Having realized this all I want to do is sit, continue this sudden philosophical view of my life-- everything that I have tried to shape and made some sense out of for the past twenty-six years.

A heart beat of pain.

A sense of a panic attack.

My heart quickly shrivels to the size of a raisin. Its thumping takes on the similarity of a drum beating to a slow rhythm, sending vibrations that echo strongly and loudly in the empty chamber of my chest. Ripples of tormenting reverberations that emanate from my heart and travel to my skull, to wickedly stay and haunt now my empty castle, already demonized with questions of life and meaning, act like a demeaning whirl in a dance.

The heat in my chest wants to force the screen in my mind to replay all of my memories from day one of my existence to now and fast forward through everything, stop at every point in my "reel of life", the very frame where I can see myself feeling regret, feeling a moment of "pathetic enlightenment."

Yes, when you are at the brink of death, life and what people have come to shape it, seems so meaningless. And yet, all one ever wants to do all the time, especially when one has time to think, is to hold on to someone’s life. To want everything-- especially loved ones-- to remain, makes one continue going on through the tedious Fool’s journey.

Why does human nature intensely desire what it is about to lose?

I linger. I raise myself and walk toward my mission wasting more energy in the process than I should.

I must relieve my aunt soon. I have to. And it is not that I do not want to, it’s just that that "inevitable moment" is nearing, and I do not want to be there accepting grandma’s death. I can already hear death ringing its bell from the courtyard. Every day I hear it get closer and closer. It is here and heading toward our door, toward our chamber-- our heart’s heart. Unfortunately, there is no escape, and yet I want to flee from it, from its invisible hooks.

Yes, I realize I’m just a lost fish in the sea of ignorance. Reality is sharper than its very hook. Everyone is hooked, but only one knows when it is time to be raised from this existence when death comes ‘a tugging.

I proceed, toward my duty. I reach for my pants and T-shirt. I dress in the most lethargic way. And I begin to loathe myself again. I just keep imagining my aunt at the hospital. I keep seeing her weary body. I want to kiss her tenderly, thank her for taking care of my grandmother night and day for the past week, and repay her with some time of rest. And how am I compensating her now?-- by taking longer than I should to reliever her.

I stop and ponder. A soft voice in my mind takes the stage, the microphone and speaks. The berth of my mind vibrates with words that can awake the dead, the sleeping beauties.

I sit on the edge of my bed once again, T-shirt on and only one leg in my pants, my hands holding on to the waist of my jeans.

How long grandmother? How long? Will I get the chance today to ask you of your past, of your history, of my history? Will you remember?

You’re almost a hundred grandmother. Almost a hundred... Will you make it?

Sadness overtakes me, controls me. And though my physical body remains frozen, in a pose of dressing, my spirit feels as if it has fallen to the ground- passed out.

A rushing gamut of memories attacks me, so early in the morning, of my beloved grandmother. They race before the stage of my mind.

Tears gather at my eyes and one succeeds in rolling down my cheek, refreshing my first clear memory of her, where the reel of my grandmother’s memories has stopped. At its beginning.