The Preservation of Something Not Yet Gone

The preservation of something not yet gone.

There’s some people that always feel like they’re going to live forever. My grandmother is not one of them. Since she was in her late 80s, she has felt the weight of her age in her bones, and although she has remained as sharp as a tack, the frailty of her body has grown more and more obvious. This past year, she turned 100 years old. Even in the celebration of that number, the dread of her death is every present. Not many people live that long. Not many people want to.

In December, she got sick, sick enough to be put on hospice. The dread became terror. I live an ocean away with a job that grants me zero vacation days and zero sick days. I told my director I would quit if she didn’t let me go see her, and I got to spend the first week of December with her. As everyone has always said, she has good days and bad days. During one of the bad days, I had to choke back tears as I spoke to her, expecting every day to be the end. I have a cross that she gave me for my confirmation. I haven’t taken it off once since I found out she was on hospice, as if I could will her into good health with love and a necklace.

Me and my sister, who also ran home from half a country away to see her, made sure to take pictures with her, just in case they were our last. The pictures felt odd to take. It’s not many 100 year old women’s instinct to take a selfie, but to me I knew I would need a picture of a final moment with her, especially if she passed after I returned to Korea.

I’ve been wearing this cross for almost two months now, pestering my dad for updates on her health. Looking at the pictures I took with her feels odd. The picture is rather like a goodbye that took place too soon before the end. My other grandma cuts flowers from their stems so that she doesn’t have to watch them wilt. Maybe I am more similar than I thought. I spent so long preparing to mourn her that perhaps I colored happy moments with sadness.

Though it is hard not to be sad when you know that even her good days are full of pain, that her bones have 100 years of use, and that would make even the strongest feel weary. I know that she wishes to leave, and I feel selfish for not wanting her to. I know that she prays to God to grant her rest, and I pray conversely for Him to let me see her again. Everytime I would travel for years abroad, I would take a snapshot of her in my mind, trying to remember the last time I saw her. I have so many snapshots of moments that I was terrified would be the end.

Perhaps age has taught her not to fear the finality of such a goodbye. I know she wants to see her parents and her husband again. I wish my faith was as strong as it used to be. I wish I wasn’t so terrified that the end was just the end. Maybe then I could let the moments be happy instead of trying to be certain that I could preserve her memory for as long as possible. There is so much to remember of her, but also so much that I didn’t get to know, so many years she lived before I was even alive. She’s lived an incredible life, and I want her memory to live forever. Here I am, wallowing in grief, of a person still alive.