Her letters were piling up.
I didn’t want to open them. My grandmother had been dead for 3 years, and I just kept taking in her letters. At first I threw away the ones that were obviously advertisements, but I kept the ones that looked like they might’ve come from someone real. I couldn’t bring myself to open them, though.
There were at least a couple dozen of the letters there. 3 years worth of mail, and she was still getting letters more often than me.
My mom had been getting on my case about the letters for a while now. Well, my step-mom. She wasn’t too close with my grandma. I’m not mad about that, it is what it is. Still… It stung.
I sat down and finally tore open one of those letters. It was for some psychiatry or hospital service or something. I don’t remember the details.
Well, I remember one.
“You might be experiencing rapid loss of brain tissue, dementia-”
“No shit!” I shouted. “She’s in the fucking dirt!”
I cried. I watched her suffer for the last three years of her life. I should’ve taken her off of life support earlier. I shouldn’t have requested the liver transplant. I should’ve just let her go to a retirement home. I shouldn’t have moved in with her. I shouldn’t have inherited her house. I shouldn’t have started renovating it the moment she was gone. I shouldn’t have lived with roommates who fucked my over. I shouldn’t have had my girlfriend move in after they left. I shouldn’t have taken the master bedroom- her room. I shouldn’t wake up every morning with the only memory of her in this being twenty fucking letters on a table. I should visit her grave. I should buy her flowers. I should stare longingly at the grave and tell my girlfriend that “you were taken too soon.” I should stare at the sun as it sets, and ask her what she thinks my grandma’s last sunset looked like. She should say “You saw it with her, didn’t you?” I should say “Yeah. I did. But I didn’t even look at the sun. I was looking at her. She was dying. I knew it. I knew I would never see her again after that night and I wanted to take in every one of her details. She wasn’t on oxygen, she didn’t have any other life support, she just had me, a wheelchair, and the fading sun. She stared at the mountains in the distance while I watched her life fade in front of my eyes.” I should stutter. I should cry.
I do.