Diary of a dying man

The first encounter with death

I stood up to look for a black bag, I didn't want to fill my couch with memories that I was going to throw away anyway, so I resorted to that mania that my mother has so marked, to put everything in order. After leaving the room for a moment, I stopped at the kitchen window, still thinking about Estefania and Gabriela, trying to analyze what went wrong? Why, after so many years, was I still feeling that unpleasant sensation in my chest? (I admit it, for a moment I thought it was a symptom of Covid19, but it didn't take me more than a couple of seconds to discard that stupid idea...)

I pulled the black bag out of the package I keep under the sink and went back into the living room, taking the bits of souvenirs and tossing them unceremoniously into the bag...then I saw it...a little blue box. With a hand as cold as ice, I slipped it into the dusty box and picked it up almost afraid it was going to break. Time in storage had been cruel to what I had in my hands. The box was slightly moth-eaten, which gave me reason to believe that many more things inside my box of memories were in bad shape... I opened the little blue box that began to crumble into pieces before the pressure of my fingers and found a silver and gold ring

You will probably think it was an engagement ring, wedding ring or something more of the love type... but no... it was the ring my grandmother wore. Let me explain: I am the son of divorced parents, I grew up with my mother and grandparents, because my "father" thought he was the alpha male and wanted to play the womanizer, lying and manipulating, but when he had to take care of me, he ran away (which is his only specialty) anyway.... I never lacked love. As a child, when I was sad or something affected me (maybe at that moment my family must have realized that I was a child showing clear symptoms of depression) I would run to my grandmother and lay down on the couch, with my head on her legs and cry my eyes out, while she consoled me and talked to me lovingly... or well... as lovingly as she was able to.

I'm not saying she wasn't a wonderful woman, it's just that in that respect I am extremely similar to her and it was not easy for her to express her emotions, feeling uncomfortable with displays of affection. However, I felt protected with her, I played with her and in fact, she gave me a basketball hoop and challenged me to get a certain amount of baskets every day in exchange for one of my own, which led me to develop my current height, far exceeding the family average. With my grandmother I had many anecdotes and very happy moments, breaking with her the macho stereotype that "a man does not cook" (yes, in my childhood the idea that women should do the housework was deeply rooted) and I, of course, also took advantage, because besides learning baking with her, I also earned some money by helping with the cleaning.

However... as our relationship grew strained... I never really understood the breaking point (so to speak) until she was hospitalized for surgery for a month and I went to see her every day. Then seeing her in a wheelchair, so aged, it dawned on me that I had never thanked her for all she had done for me, nor let her know how important she was...is...in my life. That afternoon, in the emergency room at Angamos Hospital, I leaned over her before she went in for a blood sample and said "Mimi, thank you for everything, sorry for not telling you sooner. I love you very much mimita, I am very proud of you".

She looked at me very sweetly and patted my hand with a satisfied smile, very peaceful, as I had not seen her in a long time. The next day in class, I felt a strange worry, as if something was not right... and when a classmate asked me what was wrong, I told her without a second thought that my grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer... I knew nothing about anything, I just threw it out point blank and said whatever came to my mind... to this day I wonder how I got the diagnosis right and how I anticipated the situation... or even more sinister.... wasn't I the cause of the disease in some mystical or supernatural way that I cannot comprehend?

The next day my grandmother was admitted to the police hospital, thanks to the contacts of a niece of hers who had connections with this hospital... that was the last time I saw her. She was hospitalized for 7 days and no visitors were allowed. On the sixth day, they gave the news to my mother and the next day, my grandmother passed away... I was in total shock.... I remember perfectly the route I took because it was my job to break the news to my grandfather.... How was it that I told him that his partner of 48 years of marriage had passed away... I will never understand... that day as much as I wanted to, I could not cry, the tears just would not flow and I thought there was something wrong with me... I was shocked.

I didn't have the courage to go to the wake and because of my emotional instability, my grandfather and my mother recommended me to stay at home under the supervision of a relative... it was then that I noticed the pattern... I was very stable and calm for days... weeks even... until the 30th arrived. Up until then, I had avoided school so I wouldn't have to answer questions or endure condolences, but that 30th was too much for me. At that moment my depression and anxiety said both present with the force of a nuclear explosion... I stopped thinking logically and took my bike. I headed towards Miraflores and rode away from the routes that cyclists usually follow, going to the edge of the cliff. There I grabbed a piece of glass from the ground and opened my wrists, crying in a stream of silent tears what I hadn't cried in a month

I don't remember much afterwards... I remember starting to get dizzy and hands holding me down. I lost consciousness shortly after and heard my grandmother's voice, telling me "it's not time yet, don't be an idiot" (yes... my grandmother was always very delicate in saying things) when I opened my eyes I was in a hospital bed, with my wrists pinned to the bed and an IV with a bag of blood in it. My mother and grandfather were there, both looking at me very worried. I cried again at the sight of them, because I felt I had let them down. I felt like a coward and miserable for hurting them even having such a great loss in such a short time, but my grandfather came over to me and untied my wrists. Without saying a word, he placed the gold and silver ring that belonged to my grandmother in my palm and just said "she would want you to have it, so maybe you don't do any more crap" (yes...my grandfather was like that) then he leaned over me and hugged me, letting the tears flow that he hadn't cried too. My tears were wetting his hair and my mother was crying too, I guess out of solidarity (something common in my mother) and also out of the joy of still having me alive.

I don't remember when I put her ring in my box... but I hadn't touched it since I placed it here... I took the little chain I wear around my neck and placed the ring on it as it didn't fit my fingers now (in fact my hand is much bigger than my grandmother's, so technically I never wore it) and suddenly I felt like a kid again. ...I saw myself lying on the old red couch in the house where I lived the best years of my life with my grandparents and my mother, placing my head on my grandmother's lap, while she caressed me tenderly... then I remembered that she never left.... even if I wasn't able to perceive her... she was just waiting for me to realize that she is always by my side and that even though I am not a man of faith or religious in any sense, she was going to be waiting for me to become a child under her care again