The day was August 28th, 2012. Summer was coming to a close, but the sun was still out and shining radiantly. I squinted as the light peered through the window of my car, both blinding me and burning the skin of my arm. I still wasn’t used to feeling the sun’s rays at this intensity. Our old car had had built-in sun shades for the side windows to block out the light of the sun, but this car was lacking in that department, among other ones. We had bought a new car only a few months ago. It had been my mom’s decision - a birthday present, really. We had been in need of a new car and, with my mom’s birthday just around the corner back in April, my dad had let her choose the model. When she had chosen a car with less trunk space, uncomfortable backseats, and cumbersome seat belts, my dad had hid his disappointment, but I had made my disgust unmistakably clear. I had yet to accept my mom’s decision, so as we drove to the supermarket, I did not once make eye contact with her. Instead, I looked down and sulked in the front seat as sweat dribbled down my forehead.

I wasn’t sulking because the car annoyed me. That would be pathetic. I was more bothered by our destination. There were only two weeks before the end of summer break and I had to spend a lovely summer Saturday sitting in the confines of a small room in a nursing home half an hour away from my house. My mom was even less eager to spend her day in that malodorous, disease-ridden facility, but, as my father’s wife, she was obligated to pay a visit. As their daughter, I was obligated to listen to them when they told me I was coming too.

My mom, in no hurry to arrive on time, told me it was absolutely necessary that we first go grocery shopping. I rolled my eyes. I watched her run into the grocery store, expecting the trip to take at least another 20 minutes. While my mom was set on putting off the inevitable, I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible so that I could return to enjoying my summer. No, that wasn’t the only reason. I was also slightly afraid of going to the nursing home and seeing my grandfather; his vegetable body lying under those hospital-blue covers, his eyes staring through me into oblivion, his lifeless fingers dangling off the edge of the bed - I was afraid that none of it would strike any sorrow within me. I was afraid that all I would feel would be helplessness and guilt because I was his granddaughter and I never tried to get to know him. I didn’t tell my mom about my anxiety because hiding behind the bratty-inconsiderate-teenage-girl persona was easier than admitting my unease about the visit.

By the time my mom returned, a half hour had gone by. She still wasn’t ready to go to the nursing home so she insisted that we go to Party City and buy my grandfather some balloons; it was his birthday after all. Normally, balloons are common courtesy on someone’s birthday, but considering my grandfather was basically comatose, I doubted the significance that the air-filled plastic balls would have on his condition.

“They’re not for him.” My mother retorted after I questioned her reasoning.

“Oh.” I muttered back.

I understood that the balloons were for my grandmother, who had spent every waking moment for the past two years beside my grandfather’s bed, watching the life disappear from her husband’s eyes. Those balloons were supposed to make her smile, even if only for a split second. It was clear that if any of us deserved to be happy, it was she.

“Are we going there now?” I asked my mom.

“Yes.” She answered with a heavy sigh.

She didn’t want me to see him. I understood why. No 14 year-old girl should have to see her grandfather deteriorate. But, while she was scared to expose me to that kind of pain, I was trying to figure out a way to tell her that I wasn’t going to feel any pain. I assured her that I would be fine seeing him, not in the “I’ll pretend to be okay for you, mom” kind of way, but in the “trust me, it won’t hurt even if I wanted it to” kind of way.

“I’ll be fine, mom,” I said.

“Sure.” She scoffed.

We finally arrived at the nursing home at 5:00pm (two hours later than we promised my grandmother). When we stepped through the glass sliding doors into the pale-orange lobby lined with dozens of automated hand-sanitizer dispensers, I felt nauseous. Every nursing home I had ever visited always reeked of old-age and mental instability, and this place was no exception. My mom and I walked into the elevator and, after spending a few minutes remembering which floor he was located on and his room number, we rode all the way up to the third floor, turned left to walk down the hall, made a 180 degree rotation, and walked back up to room 319.

I took a deep breath before I stepped into the room. I saw my grandfather on the bed, a third of the size he used to be. He was mostly skin and bones at this point. My grandmother was sitting on the stool next to him. She was feeding him a spoon of mashed potatoes. The bedside table had several bowls of food - chicken soup, vegetable purees, other baby-food-like mush - all of which had barely been touched. The most movement he made was the slow rise and fall of his stomach under the blankets with each breath he took. He opened his mouth just wide enough to allow the tip of the spoon of potato to slide in. When my grandmother tried to get him to take another lick, he tipped his head to the side, misaligning his mouth from the spoon. My grandmother put the spoon back into the bowl and then turned around to face us. She looked like she had aged ten years since last Monday. The bags under her eyes were a glum shade of purple and her cheeks sagged from the burden of my grandfather’s condition. She stood up to hug me and faked a smile, but her sullen eyes revealed her heartache. I put on a face of remorse to lend my grandmother an emotional hand and tell her that I was with her. I felt awkward surrounded by the anguish that I couldn’t reciprocate wholeheartedly.

There was a light wheezing sound that followed the hug.

“What’s that?” My mom asked.

“He’s been doing that all afternoon. The nurses say it’s nothing.” My grandmother replied, brushing away the topic.

We handed her the balloons and she tied them to his bed. I read the generic “Happy Birthday!” on the multi-colored balloon. It suddenly hit me that I had no idea how old he was turning. I didn’t want to ask in front of my grandmother so I decided I would ask my mother later in the car.

Then I heard another sound, different from the wheezing. I scanned the room to find the source of the beeping sound and realized it was coming from the bedside monitor. The wheezing had gotten stronger and the beeping had created tension in the room, but my grandfather remained as still and calm as usual. I didn’t want to admit what I was thinking - what we were all thinking. It can’t be. No, it’ll be fine.

I looked over at my mom, whose skin had gone from fair to ghostly white. I didn’t know the correct protocol. I’m 14. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Mom, tell me what to do. I resorted to paralysis, eyeing my mother as she comprehended the change of events and attempted to relay them to my grandmother without me noticing. I know what’s going on, but I need you to say it out loud. Just tell me. I’ll regret it if I don’t know for sure.

I felt a pull on my arm and, suddenly, I was being dragged outside of the room by my mother.
“Sit here, everything is okay,” my mom convinced me as she shoved me into the chair in the hallway.
“Okay,” I called after her silhouette that was already halfway down the hall scouting for an available nurse.
I watched the nurses run in and out of the room. I needed my mom to come out of the room and say it was a false alarm. I needed her to stop trying to cover up the panic all over her face. I needed honesty. I needed something concrete. I needed to know if this was my last chance, but I stayed put, not wanting to interrupt the procedures.

It happened in a blur. Everyone running in and out of the room. No one paying attention to me as I anxiously awaited an answer. The beeping disappeared. The nurses were now clearing out of the room. I had a glimpse of hope when my mom walked out of the room to finally give me details. Maybe it’s okay. I know it’s a long-shot, but just maybe ...
“Your grandfather is dead.”

I wanted the words to hit me in the gut, but they just danced around my ears.

My mom led me back into the room. I tensed up all of my muscles. I thought it would help me gather up the strength I thought I would need to face him. It turned out, I didn’t need any strength because nothing had changed in the room. My grandfather was still lying in his bed. The covers were still blue. The food was still there. The wheezing and beeping had gone away. Everything was as it was when we had entered twenty minutes ago. The only difference was that my grandfather was now asleep. That’s what it looked like to me. Then my mind started to wander. It was scary to think that his eyes would never open again or that, if I put my fingers under his nose, I wouldn’t feel any warm air come out of his nostrils. How could he look the same, but no longer exist? He wasn’t my grandfather anymore. He was a soulless body. He wasn’t even a he. He was an it. A thing. A corpse.

My mother was bawling. I tried to cry, but my eyes were as dry as his lifeless skin. I rationalized my response as shock. My grandmother wasn’t crying either. She had seen this coming since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago. With each new illness the doctors identified - dementia, Parkinson’s - my grandmother had been gradually mustering up the strength in preparation for this day. No one knew exactly when it would come, but we all knew it was coming. Everyone knew it, except for me. For some stupid reason, I didn’t think he was going to die, at least not this soon. It had been two years since he started deteriorating, but I thought he would be in the nursing home for at least several more years before his heart stopped.

My grandmother took a deep sigh and started to pack up her bag. No, stop. You can’t leave. This can’t be the end. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I heard footsteps outside of the room and turned my head to see my dad standing outside of the room. He was doleful, but he wasn’t crying. I walked over to him.

“Why aren’t you crying?” I asked him. You just lost your father.

“There’s no point,” he sighed. “We all knew it was coming.”

I realized that my dad had lost his father years ago.

The next noise I heard was the pitter-patter of my sister running down the hallway. Her face was red and covered in salty tears. She was trying to verbalize her emotions, but the sobs and spit made her speech incomprehensible. She ran into my mother’s arms, blubbering into her black sweater. Her tears prompted the flow of mine. I was ashamed of myself. Why could she cry, but I couldn’t? Why didn’t I get to know my grandfather? Why didn’t I know his age?!

I was a horrible granddaughter. I had never spent time with my grandfather. Our language barrier had always been my excuse for my behavior. Besides for “how are you” and “good”, I was strictly an English speaker and he only knew Russian. I should’ve learned Russian, I scolded myself. He was like 80-years-old. I couldn’t have expected him to learn English. I should’ve just learned the stupid language. At least, I would’ve known something about him. I should’ve come to visit him more. Why did I put those visits off? Why was I afraid of him? Why did I pretend like his death wasn’t coming? I sat down in the chair in the hallway, weeping not over his death, but over my own selfishness.

After a few minutes, my mom came out of the room to sit next to me. She hugged me and I cried into her shoulder. I contemplated asking her that humiliating question that had bothered me since we had arrived. She’ll be disappointed with me. No, I couldn’t let that stop me from asking her. I couldn’t let him go without knowing the answer.
“Mom, how old was grandpa today?”

“Oh, um, eighty-two? Eighty-three? I’m not sure. Let’s see. He was born in ...1929, I think. So if you do the math he’s ...”

“Eighty-three,” I say after a few seconds of calculations go by. “Yeah, it’s definitely eighty-three.”

“So, there you go,” my mom answered with a warm smile.

Her reaction relieved me. She wasn’t sure how old he was today, either. With that answer, everything got better. It was suddenly okay that I didn’t know his age. I was still to blame for all of those lost years, but how many of them really were there? He was born in 1929. I was born in 1997. He died when I was 14. He got sick when I was 12. How many years did I actually have that I could have gotten to know him. Four years, maybe? He wouldn’t have wanted me to cry; that much I was sure of. He loved me. I was his “misinka”, whatever that meant. I’m not an awful granddaughter. I had to remember the days before he got sick. The smile he had whenever he saw me. It didn’t matter that I didn’t get to know him. All that mattered was that he loved me and that I had made him happy. All that mattered was that I remembered him.