A College Seeress' Diary

How Grand!

Dear Jesus,

When my grandmother announced that we had to go right away to see my grandfather, I wondered what the rush was for.

I wasn't exactly looking forward to a trip to yet another demon-infested hospital. At the back of my mind, as Grandma got up and gestured for us to follow, I had already begun to scramble for the perfect escape speech.

Tell Gloria to quit giving me that look. It's creepy.
It wasn't going to necessarily be a lie. I was just, you know, planning to give the viable excuse that I needed more time to process all I had just heard.

Urgh! How nice of me after claiming to have completely forgiven them! Not to talk of the fact that I was well aware that my grandfather's lifespan hourglass was dripping down sand faster than a desert storm.

As fate would have it, there was no need for my speech, so I was (thankfully) saved from having to lie.

What I didn't realize at that time was that their magnificent house had almost every facility that could make up a self-sustained community.

As I later found out, the house had a swimming pool at the backyard (although I wondered why two old people would have a swimming pool), a fully furnished staff quarters detached from the main building, a mega library, a fitness gym, a whole room where stacks of packaged clothes sat untouched, a restaurant-worthy kitchen, many rooms with state-of-the-art equipment. It wasn't a big for nothing building, I tell you.

Grandma—Mrs Beatrice Gorge, as I later found out her name was— led us all into a spacious medical chamber where Grandpa—Mr Alexander Gorge—was being taken care of.
The place had a minimalistic design, equipped with the latest medical care gadgets and lots of green plants.

There he lay, immobile, like a dry log on a carpet of grass.
Sorry about the not-so-nice analogy, but that was what I thought when I saw him.

It was hard to tell if it was a man or just a skeleton wrapped in white sheets like an Egyptian mummy. The only things that showed he was still alive were the faintly decipherable motions of his eyeballs, and the readings of the bleeping machines which he was hooked to. There was a ventilator, an ECG machine, and other sophisticated machines I couldn't identify.

The scene reminded me of the first time I had met Mommy Sarah, minus the fine setting and gadgets.
She'd been bedridden and emancipated, diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and kept at home to die. But, you healed her. I was only a vessel.
It was one of the first amazing supernatural happenings in my life when I newly got born again.

A private nurse had been tending to Grandpa, feeding him intravenously through tubes.
She politely curtesyed, surprised at the group of new faces she was seeing. After answering a few questions that Grandma asked, she made Grandpa sit upright and left the room.

My grandfather gazed unblinkingly at me, unable to speak.

Grandma moved closer and went over to stroke his bald head lovingly.

She said, "Hey hubby, she's finally here. Our granddaughter. See how much she looks just like Emily."

Of course, he didn't respond.

To me, she said, "The doctor says he hears and understands what's happening around him, but can't respond. His paralysis was initially partial but it soon graduated to complete, despite the intensive care we ensured he constantly received. Now, even the slurred speech we could hear from him is no more forthcoming."

Grandma sighed loudly and gestured with her hand that I should come closer.

I slowly walked towards him, not sure what to do.