Painting For My Grandpa | √Wattys 2016

Painting For My Grandpa #9

"DINNER!" Grandma yelled from the kitchen.

"Coming!" I called back as I poked my head out of the room into the corridor leading to the kitchen.

I walked back towards the bed, pushing Grandpa's wheelchair to the side of it.

"Okay time to eat," I said as I arranged the wheelchair in a position where it's easier to hoist Grandpa into it.

"Aspen, something feels... Wrong," Grandpa said wearily as he let me take him by his armpits to begin carrying him to the wheelchair.

"What do you mean?" I forced out as I exerted strength into lifting him upwards.

I managed to gently drop him into the chair and then started to push him out of the room.

"I mean it's like Aspen made a mistake on her painting kind of wrong," he replied thoughtfully.

"I feel like I'm dying."

I stopped in my tracks which made Grandpa turn to look up at me.

"Aspen I won't be alive for very long and you know that. Other than my daily leakages, constant unsual coughing and the occasional blood in my pee, I can feel it. The cancer growing in me. I am at Stage 4 cancer after all, I now have lung and prostate cancer. It's spreading, fast. I don't have that much time left."

I watched the first tear roll down his cheek.

I've never seen this side of Grandpa.

He's been so joyful and being his old self. Yet he now can't have a proper conversation without having several coughing fits throughout. His cancer is going to get worse and what he's going through is only the beginning of his pain.

And it's spreading.

And it won't stop.

Until he's dead.

And there's nothing, not anything that could be done to stop the inevitable.

And I may be too late to make up for everything I didn't do before.

~ωωω~

"I wish I could go outside," Grandpa sighed, sinking deeper into the bedsheets.

"But this darn wheelchair isn't made for the outdoors. For the rolling hills and fresh grass. It's not meant for someone like me. Yet here I am."

He then chuckled softly.

I paused my brushstrokes and looked down.

The painting of Zara I started two weeks ago was almost complete.

And recently, Grandpa's doctor, Everette Olsen, has called in to check on Grandpa's condition.

Grandpa chatted with him quietly in his room privately for more than an hour.

Based on how long they have been chatting, it was almost not surprising when the doctor asked Grandpa to have a checkup once they had stepped outside.

When I didn't answer, Grandpa then continued.

"My checkup is at 3 later today. I'm sure Grandma has told you so you can bring me there."

I nodded, still staring at the nearly complete painting.

There was a funny feeling rising inside me yet I felt so numb.

I hate Grandpa, I really do. Yet, this checkup, Grandpa's long talk with his Doctor, it gives me a sick feeling and I don't understand why.

I don't understand what I told Riff two weeks ago either.