This last week has been worse, though, or something, and when she called last Wednesday she was asking my dad for permission to die. She's been short of breath. She's not eating. She dislikes everything. I don't know. It feels like being in quasi-mourning, which, the way I'm gonna feel like an asshole if she dies? I'm gonna feel exactly that ridiculous if she lives another five, ten years. I hope she does. I hope I get to feel ridiculous instead of like an asshole.
Meanwhile, I'm googling "Things to Say to Dying Grandparents" just in case, but the articles don't give advice on Magicking a Relationship Out of Nowhere, which is what I really want. Nana loves me dearly, the way you fall in love with a movie star or picture. I was the first granddaughter, the daughter she always wanted but never got, and while four year old me was collecting bugs and climbing trees, she was sending me dresses with high, itchy necklines. At sixteen, when I dyed my blond hair red and kept it up until three months ago, it was, "I miss your blond hair. You just look so much more like Amanda when you're blonde," which I hate because I feel so much more like Amanda when it's red. She loves the six year old me in a frame on her mantle, not the twenty four year old woman who swears and smokes and spends weekends in cabins sinning.
Last week, when I called her in the hospital, she told me about a nurse's aide who was helping her, because the aide was young and her name was Amanda too. Nana said, "She was a nice enough girl, but she had a lip ring." I laughed. Nana asked, "You don't have a lip ring, do you?" I paused and wanted to tell her yes, I got a lip piercing, in fact, I got snake bites which means there's TWO OF THEM, Nana, and I have defaced myself forever. Twice. Instead, though, I said, "No, Nana, I don't have a lip ring." She sighed and said "Thank goodness."
Love you too, Nana.