Her breathing is laborious. The hospice room is painted mint green. My aunt Jan had decorated, placing pictures of all her grandchildren on the bulletin board. The nightstand next to her bed is filled with the bodice rippers she loves to read.

When I walked into the room Cody 5, Joey 4, and Andrew, nearly 2, were wrestling on the floor. My cousin Joey (a mere 3 days older than me) was sitting next to the bed holding her hand. He stood up, and clung to me, and it was all too familiar. That’s what we did the first time we saw each other after his brother Alan had died.

“Turn me over,” Grammu cried out from the bed.

My mom and dad turned her on her side and she promptly fell asleep.

And my family, we kept a not so silent vigil by her bedside. And she lingers still.

We joked, we laughed, making fun of sister #4’s 5X7 senior picture hanging above the great-grandchildren dotted bulletin board. There’s always a picture of sister #4.

We ate the chocolates that Grammu so adored. Passing the box from uncle George to sister #2 to sister #3 to Joey to uncle Danny (my mom’s twin brother) to me to sister #4 to mom and back to George. We watched in anticipation as each person’s finger danced over the box of chocolates making our predictions as to what the rich creamy center would be made of.

“Oh! I got the caramel,” sister #2 said.
“I got the orange spooj,” Joey said.

And then we passed the box around again, chastising sister #4 for the way she smelled the chocolate and then put it back.

And she still lingered.

We talked about the snooze game, and debated creamy vs. crunchy peanut butter, skippy vs. jif. We came to the consensus that we all use miracle whip.

And still she lingered.

At 4 a.m. the kicked us out. We took mamala to get something to eat, since that’s something she forgot to do the day before.

“You know,” she said, “I just wish she’d go. It’s time and she’s ready.”
“I’m kind of excited of her,” sister #3 said her eyes leaking, voice cracking. “After 21 years she’ll be able to see grandpa again. If that were me and I hadn’t seen Tony for 20 years, I’d be excited.”
“She’s been ready to die since he died,” Danny said.
And still, she lingers.

I came home at 5:30 this morning, to sleep a bit and recharge my batteries. The words on the book began to blur and I put it away.

The phone never rang, so she still lingers.

And before I opened my eyes this morning I had a dream, a dream where Grammu died.

I was sleeping on a cot-like thing inside the nursing home. I heard my mom cry out. Grammu was gone. But when I got up, Grammu was walking towards me. Not the sick Grammu in the bed who scared each time she took a breath, but the Grammu in the pictures, the robust woman who could walk without shuffling her feet. She hugged me long and hard. Then looked over my shoulder.

“Is that really you I see?” she asked.

Then she let me go and walked away. She laid on the ground dressed in a wedding dress and rolled into the grave.

Then I woke up.

And she still lingers. Now I will put on clothes and begin my vigil anew. My mom is adamant that someone is with her at all times. When she goes, she will not be alone.

I haven’t cried as much as I expected to. I’ve been strangely stoic, uncharacteristically quiet. I broke down last night though.

The “grown-ups” had left the room, outside to smoke. The sisters and I were left alone with Grammu. We talked in hushed voices; just the four of us and sister #3 began to cry.

“Please,” I begged, “if you start I’ll never stop.”
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I just keep remembering when I interviewed her in June for my class. It was about death and she said that the only thing she hoped was that her children and grandchildren know how much she loved them.”

And then I cried, and she lingered.

And I’m still so very scared.