I looked up into the darkness.
Everything seemed so alive, as the music from my earphones blared into my very thoughts. I couldn't sleep.
I was trying very hard not to fall into the gory pit of deep thought that my curious mind liked to wander into.
Just as my senses seemed fade away like the dark grey colours of my room, I felt a tug on my earphones.
I immediately turned down my music, feeling the hairs on the back if my neck raise.
Inspecting the room, I saw nothing and when I looked next to my bed I imagined my diseased grandmother kneeling beside me, telling me that I was okay.
My mind shot back to when I visited her for the last time.
My dad and I had driven 2 hours to get to where she was being taken care of, by my aunt.
I walked up the little stone path with a thousand different lime green plants growing beside it. The house had a large window to the right side of the front door.
I didn't dare peer inside.
We waited awhile and eventually heard footsteps from inside the house. The door unlocked and my aunt stood just behind the threshold. She looked drained and frail, as if all the life had been sucked from her soul.
After a short reunion with her and my cousins, I took a step inside , afraid of what I'd see.
My grandma lay on the two seat couch wrapped in a blanket. She had a blindfold on, but it seemed that she wasn't actually sleeping.
My grandpa told her that Caela had come to see her. That was me.
She didn't seem to process what he was saying, so he helped her take her blindfold off.
The moment she saw me, tears sprung up from her eyes and she started sobbing, her face distorting like kneadable rubber. I knelt beside the couch and held her hand, trying not to squeeze it too tightly. She tried so hard... So very hard to make conversation with me, but the words slurred out, sounding vaguely like an actual language.
I could see the frustration and sadness that accumulated in her eyes. She was aware of how much she was struggling.
It was then and there that I had felt the most sadness toward the future of her existence and the pain she was going through presently and the memories from the past that would always remain memories.
My mind jumped to the day my mom had called me down from my room and told me of her passing.
I remember how she cried on my shoulder, but all I could shed were a few tears. The sadness I'd felt before was nowhere to be found,
And as I stared into the darkness, I tried to cultivate the sadness, since I'd been thinking of her.
I couldn't.
And it made me so angry. I lifted my hand and curled it into a fist, not hesitating to punch the boney area of my chest, just between my breasts.
I punched and punched because it was the only way I'd feel something.
And when I still didn't feel sad, I scratched and scratched until tears ran down my eyes and blood trickled down my skin.
I just wanted her to know that I love her, because I did and I still do.
And I'll never understand why I could love her but never cry more than once for her.
This short story is partially based on my own experience. The passing of my grandmother has still never felt like reality to me.
