I touched her hand. She flinched suddenly, trying to pull it away, but lacking the strength to make a committed move. She resolved to allow me to settle mine on hers. I could feel her energy through her vein ridden hands. These were the hands that once held me as a child; the hands that spanked me when I was naughty. Hands, with spittle applied, hand- combed my hair in place.
I could feel her blood circulating slowly. She never got excited anymore. Fear grasped me for a moment. Is this what I have to look forward to? Is this to be her genetic legacy to me? I caught myself feeling selfish and dismissed the previous thought because this was not about me.
She stared straight ahead at an old fire policy posted on the wall. I was seated next to her bed in a simple room that she was unable to make her own. Her taste and style were sadly missing, a fact that surely bothered her. A variety of medications watched her from a plate on the bedside table. An open bible next to it with the bookmark showing, its pages gently fluttering from the over- head fan. Seldom did she blink. So I watched the policy with her not sure what to say. Eventually, bored, I looked upon her again. She ignored me. I looked at the cheap paisley nightgown buttoned up tightly to her neck. That was so not her. Some staff member had fashioned her into a clone of what existed here. She did not belong. I knew she had to be screaming inside. I was helpless to change her fate.
Surprisingly her skin was almost wrinkle free, probably due to the nightly Shea butter she applied for decades, but age still existed there. It was mostly in the eyes that for years held a calm sagacious spell on me. The other traitor was her hair, once a thick black mane but now reduced to white silvery strands of snow, the final betrayal.
The attendant said she had sat like this all day, to them death was imminent. In silence I took part of that journey with her for words still escaped me. Instead, I sat with memories hoping that somehow I could magically inform her of all the joy she had given me, and the gratitude and deep respect I felt for her. She showed me love that her own daughter was unable to. She defended me when mother flooded me with abuses wounding my heart and stomping it with shame. She had survived them all; my brother taken by addiction because his stomping was deeper than mine; little Gracie, dropped in a fit of rage never to recover, quickly to fade and wilt away. I was all she had left and now she was unable to take care of me and I of her. I looked at the bible beside her and cursed the protagonist for rendering her with beliefs that he was unable to deliver on. She did not deserve such an end. I always thought she’d be there or at least be taken in sleep when the time came, but not this, not this kind of silent death.
I placed my hands on hers again. This time she did not shudder but seemed to accept it without protest. I smiled.
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