I'd almost forgotten that I was there when she died. I remember it so vividly. She was breathing so hard, it was so difficult for her and for us. She died only an hour after we took her next door from her assisted living home- to hospice. There was a deep gurgling coming from her. Her body was shutting down, backing up, getting ready to stop. She breathed heavy and labored until she just stopped. I thought it would be more. I thought it would be gross or grand or theatrical. But she left this world simply. Her breaths got slower, with bigger pauses in between them. And then she took a breath and didn’t take another. My father had been murmuring next to her,
“You can let go.” And she did. She didn’t feel with us at that time, but I know she must have been listening. I knew she was going to die that day, just like I had known six years and nine months earlier that her husband, my grandpa, was going to die. I was in sixth grade. My parents had asked me if I knew why all my aunts and uncles were in town. I knew subconsciously I think. They told me my grandfather was going to die. I insisted on seeing him to say goodbye. I knew he would die. I was late to school after saying goodbye to him. Not "goodbye" but goodbye. He died the next morning. 2:00am, and the Shabbat candles were still lit. But at least I know I won't ever feel guilty for not spending time with my grandma. Because I spent a lot of time with her. Talking about nothing, eating coffee ice cream, smiling at each other. When her appetite had gotten much smaller, she ate very little. For breakfast, half of a cheese danish from Panera. For lunch, half a sandwich and a few slices of a clementine. For dinner, whatever meal the assisted living home was having. She used to eat in the dining room with the same ladies every night. Eventually her dinners arrived to her apartment in the hands of an orderly, in a styrofoam box. Whenever coffee ice cream was offered, she ate it. I offered it one day. She was having a lot of trouble, her hands were shaking…  It took her so long to eat it that it was almost completely liquid and most of the slightly melted ice cream ended up on her nightgown and on her sheets. She rarely got out of bed. It used to be a bed, but they switched with a hospital bed a few years ago. To make things easier. Easier for her body, I guess. But I fed her that day. I was 18 and I had just come from the JCC, right next door. I was in my gym clothes and my long hair was in a ponytail and I was feeding my grandmother. Her caretaker was out on the back porch smoking a cigarette. I kept a strong face, but I cried on the way home, hopeless behind the wheel of my 17 year old mini van. You never think you’d feed your grandmother until you do. I don’t know if she was as embarrassed as I was that day, but we never spoke of it again. The day she died my parents kept telling me it was okay, that I could go home. But I didn’t want to go home. I stayed all day and into the evening. I sat in that room, with my grandmother’s three sons, my father included, and her daughter. Plus my uncle’s wives, and just one of my cousins. When she died we called her favorite caretaker. The woman who my grandmother had loved best, who had become a member of our family. My grandmother would stroke her hair and do and say things that she had never said or done around any of us before. She had a special connection with that caretaker, and we have since adopted her into our family as one of us. Her skin color, her children, it doesn’t make a difference. She is one of us and will always be. Our matriarch died that day. The matriarch who regarded education above all else. Who read and pursued knowledge until her eyes were too blurred to see. The matriarch who had her own special way of loving us, which often did not include physical or verbal affection. We were there when she died. I'd almost forgotten that I was there when she died.