10:04 is an insignificant time; a mess of pointless numbers thrown together to dictate where we are supposed to be at a certain time turning us into puppets tangled in strings. As I sat through another dull chemistry, the fading scent of chemicals and rotting brains assaulting my nose, I happened to look at the clock at that particular time. I never would have been able to explain the unexpected rush of emotions I experienced. Not even a minute had passed before the last minute substitute reluctantly called my name from across the room, my name bounced off the brick walls and barreled into me with a force enough to steal my next breathe. Disobedient tears shamelessly pricked my eyes immediately. My mom was waiting in the office to talk to my brother and me, she repeated like a parrot to me. She had a sympathetic look plastered on her face.

That walk to the office was a dreadfully long walk. My instinct was to run far away from the office, maybe into the woods where I could walk aimlessly in the silence over leaves and rocks and my troubles. Maybe I’d even find a feather. I tried my best to follow another rule enforced by my younger self- no crying at school- but seeing the misery echoing in Caleb’s eyes as he sat pathetically in the office, shattered that. This was the third time I’d have to say goodbye.


We arrived at the hospital around supper time, but none of us could digest the idea of food. The front desk ushered us into a stairwell leading to the second floor. The Intensive Care Unit. After wandering down pale halls for a few minutes, we came across familiar faces grouped together outside a hospital room identical to all the others. Hugs were given and tears were shed as we waited for the nurses to finish up with the hourly checkup. Finally, two women in blue emerged from the room like soldiers returning from war, seriousness etched into their faces.

“She’s ready when you are. We’ll be back to clear out her throat again soon.” I cringed at the harsh words that felt like a slap in the face and prepared to enter the room. The nurses began walking away before the one’s voice softened and she spoke again. “It’s not too often we see families like you all. Most patients are all alone.” She turned away tears glistening in her eyes. The time had come to say my first goodbye.

On shaking legs I entered the room alone and closed the door before I turned to face the bed absentmindedly twisting my ring round and round my finger like a carousel, a habit of mine. My grandma laid propped up with pillows and covered head to toe in white; even she was a deathly pale color. Her mouth hung slightly open as she sucked in another crude breath. Her eyes had taken on a distant look as she stared at the ceiling not even acknowledging my entrance. The only indication she was still breathing was the pathetic rise and fall of her flat chest.

Slowly, I trudged toward her as she tried clearing the liquid that was slowly suffocating her. Shameless tears fell down my cheeks. I cleared my hoarse throat and said the obvious.

“Hi, Grandma it’s Gabby. How are you doing?” What a stupid questions to ask her, of course she isn’t doing well. What am I supposed to say at a time like this? If our situations were reversed Grandma would know exactly what to say to make me feel better. She wouldn’t beat around the bush and she defiantly wouldn’t lie to me. “You tired?” A slight dip of her chin. She can hear me! “I know, I’m so sorry! Everyone’s here though, they’re all out in the hall way.” Tears began falling again. “Grandma it’s okay. You can let go now. We’ll be okay. We’ll miss you but we’ll-.” To my disappointment a sob I didn’t want my grandma to have to hear escaped my lips and words grew into a lump that lodged in my throat. I didn’t want her to know how much her leaving would hurt me because then she wouldn’t. She would let the fire burn inside her until it destroyed everything we love her. Her wrinkled hands, blemished by countless needles reached for mine.

“It’ll-,” she stopped to catch her breath, “be okay. It’ll be okay. It’ll okay.” She prayed. He eyes misted with tears. Guilt stabbed me like a knife and I had to reassure her immediately, to ease her troubled, cloudy mind.

“Yes, it will be okay. You don’t have to worry about us Grandma. You just let go whenever you’re ready, okay? You don’t stay for us, we’ll be fine. I love you!” She cleared her throat as if to speak again but remained silent her eyelids dropping closed. “We’ll see you again soon. Grandma? Grandma, do you want me to sing a song for you? You want me to sing for you?” She opened her eyes quickly as if she’d already forgotten I was in the room with her, she dipped her head again. She had always loved to listen to her obnoxious grandchildren sing for her as the talented ones took turns impressing her on the piano.

I sang for her a crummy version of Our God Is Greater barely making it through the first chorus before my voice gave out. Suddenly I became conscious of the others waiting in the hall to say goodbye also. This was it; I couldn’t put it off anymore. “I have to go now Grandma, someone else is going to come in now, okay?” I wiped away my tears but others replaced them and began twirling my diamonds pointlessly with weak fingers. “I love you and I’m going to miss you so much. Goodbye.. I love you.” Finally I kissed her hallow, wrinkled cheek and left.


I had knots in my back the size of golf balls and my head seemed to be constantly pounding. I wasn’t sure if it was from lack of sleep or the arguing going on between members of the family that normally got along so well. It was pathetic really. We were on day eight of waiting, some clinging to hope that their mom would live others praying for the suffering to end. I was one of the realists.

“God, take her. Don’t do this to us any longer,” I thought as I sat next to her napping skeleton. She looked so small in that big bed, so vulnerable. She was a child again, dependent on others once again, a foreign concept to the powerful women we all knew. Crying when she had to use the bathroom, having to be changed- I wasn’t prepared to have to do that. I’m still selfishly angry to be put in that position, angry at God to be forced to change the diaper of the women who had changed mine hundreds of time as a baby. Courtnee said I should feel honored to be able to care for her the way she cared for us. Honored? I was embarrassed for her and devastated that she was crying as I did- like an infant who’d wet themselves, babbling about nonsense. It wasn’t her fault she was acting this way. She was starving; already she’d gone eight days with nothing to nourish her hunger.

That hunger drove her to do things she’d never do if she were sane like crying in front of us or begging for food. “Just a crumb, please. Please. Please. I’m so hungry. Hungry. Hungry.” God, make it stop! Every syllable was a hot coal in my mouth burning me until it was finally satisfied! Feeding her wasn’t an option without a feeding tube in her stomach which she refused to do, much to those who still had hopes’ disappointment. They had it in their minds that the tube would solve all the problems, that she would grow strong and healthy, maybe even healthier than she was before she fell and broke her hip. But you see, she’d always be in bed or a wheel chair, she’d be dying from Parkinson’s, she’d still be miserable. And she knew that, that’s why she was ready to let go. She just needed to know we were ready too.

“I’m just so tired Ang. I don’t want to leave you guys. Don’t want you to feel like I gave up,” she confessed to my mom and me as I rubbed lotion into her swollen feet. Tears swam into our eyes as we listened to her, so torn.

“You fought a hard battle Joan! You don’t need to feel like you’re quitting. We all know how hard it’s been for you the past few years so you just let go when you’re ready. We’re going to be right here. We’re going to miss you but we’ll be okay.” My mom stopped to catch her breath before continuing her second goodbye. “Joan, ever since my mom died you’ve been like a mother to me and my kids. You set such a good example for me as a mom and grandma. So I want to thank you for that. I love you so much. Will you do me a favor Joan? When you get to heaven will you give my mom a big hug for me?” Desperately I wanted to see her reaction to my mom’s request so I blinked away the tears. I was nervous that she may get frighten at the subject of death even though it hung in that air like a fog. She had a huge smile on her face as if her mind was conjuring up images of herself in heaven and for the first time in a week she finally looked at peace. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a nurse who’d come to check on Grandma’s vitals wiping away streams of her own.


The next day my dad told us we had to go back home now. He and my sister were missing work and my days of missing school were getting much fewer. Even though it angered me because I wanted to be there for her when she passed, I got ready to say my second goodbye.

I was the last of my siblings to speak; I was trying to hold it off as long as I could. When it came my turn to say something I became mindful of all the eyes on me stealing away my courage and embarrassing me. I muttered a quick ‘I’ll miss you’ and ‘I love you’ and one last kiss on the cheek and escaped to the door in the corner, waiting to be free of the misery in the air. Even with the distance between us I could still plainly hear her say, “Be watching for feathers.” Humor lightened the words as if she couldn’t comprehend the impacted those words would have on me for the rest of my life.

When I was a kid we would go on hunts for feathers to put in our collections. When I moved, we wrote letters to each other and always mailed them with a few stray feathers tucked safely away inside. It became our thing. When I heard her say those final words I saw the countless letters, the stories written on wrinkled papers. I saw empty pages because the story was ending. I thought about how I’d never get another letter from her again and how I wouldn’t get a bag of Fritos on my birthday. I thought of the letters I could have written to her describing my boyfriends and the petty fights we’d gotten in. She’d never see me laced in white as I walked down the aisle to become as missus. I thought about how my kids would never know her like I knew her and she would become to them what my parents’ grandparents had become to me. Strangers that you can’t really miss no matter how hard you try because your little mind just thinks, ‘Are they even real?’. And as I thought of all this my strength dropped to my feet. The week of pain and tears and restless nights all caught up to me and I couldn’t pretend to be okay anymore to ease the tension. I burst out a muffled, “I will,” as I escaped the room as if it had burnt me.


My outburst had earned me a few more days with her. I was able to be there when the hospital finally released her so she could be home when she passed. After she stopped crying from the pain of being moved, she was so happy to be home, situated in the piano room. I’ll never forget her face when she saw Lady, her spoiled wiener dog, for the first time in weeks. Or when they entire family gathered together to sing hymns for her as my aunt played the piano. But my absences had run out; it was time to go home. Saying goodbye was so much easier now that she was at home where she should be. I was ready to let go. I wish I remembered more about the finally time I saw her alive but after the first two I wasn’t able to appreciate this goodbye. I took one last look at The Farm before it was hidden by the pines knowing it would never be the same. But she’d never be completely gone; she is the farm, she is our family gatherings, she is an abandoned feather in the side of a worn path leading to a pond filled with grandchildren laughing and splashing in the water.


People take for granted every second given to them, constantly wishing them away as we sit lazily and wait for something better. Every so often I would peel my forehead from the glossy, leather in front of me to check the time. My parents and I had been holding our breaths for two and a half hours as we drove back to The Farm. We were all desperate to stretch our legs and breathe. I spent my time trying to figure out why Caleb wouldn’t come with us. His only excuse was a job interview he had the next day. I can understand how rough these past few weeks have been but not to come just seems cruel. Finally we’d arrived back on The Farm.
The first thing I thought when I heard laughter and smelled the lingering scent of pizza in the air was that Grandma was doing better. I immediately smothered the burning ember of hope before I got burned. My family was just trying their best to celebrate my grandpa’s birthday through this tragedy. I saw a mixture of smiles and sympathetic glances as we walked through the kitchen I’d spent countless hours in making candle wax crafts with Grandma when we were younger. I thought of all the dishes I washed for a lousy dollar, the pride on Grandma’s face as she handed over the bills. Of the red cup with my name written on it waiting to touch my lips. Or the ancient typewriter she let me type letters to my parents on while I stayed with Grandma and Grandpa because of my deadly homesickness.

My dad was the first to speak up, “Where is she?”

My uncle’s recent wife answered as her pregnant-self gnawed on a slice of pepperoni pizza, “She’s gone.” The words were a slap in the face. I struggled to take in another breathe. She was obviously a person who ripped band aids off quickly. Did she realize these were the words I’d remember for the rest of my life? Anger began bubbling inside of me.

“People already came and took her body?” My dad questioned deflated. Panic shown through his eyes. Seeing such a strong man acting like that hurt.

Belated, she realized her mistake and pasted a depressed look on, “No, but she passed away around ten.” 10:04, I knew it without asking. Suddenly that mess of numbers became so much more. I felt as if I had failed her by not being there for her when she passed. Not being there didn’t even cross my mind until now. But in a way she was with me. She had given me one last goodbye. Knowing that I could walk into the piano room with my parents by my side and feel okay.