Quote: Take Your Last Look, Boys

Between my first and second university year, on my September return
from a working summer in Canada, it suddenly dawned on me that my
grandmother might actually be dying.

Before our June departure, we had noticed a gradual decline in her
condition, from a gamey walkdown the hill (neighbour-assisted) to the
Thursday Town Hall Bingo sessions--to a depressed plomping in her
window chair and a worsening of her "bowel problems." On our return,
though, we found an older-bodied woman, confined to her upstairs bed
with increasing bowel embarrassment and complaining of pain in her
lower back.

Every week or so would come a "recovery" and she would be downstairs at
the fire, "on her way back," surrounded by swaddling clothes and
clucking relatives. But always she would return to her bed, the
backpains continued and the people would cluck louder by her bed yet
whisper oftener in the kitchen.

College term began and we spent weekdays away in Glasgow. Our first
task Friday nights home was to troupe up the stairs, josh her up and
explain, if we could, what we had studied all week. Things began to
move faster as the pains got worse. Dr. L___, our family doctor,
diagnosed "calcium deficiency"--not surprising, since Gran had degraded
to lazy eating (bread smeared with beef dripping and cups of tea)--but
the tablets gave no relief. We suggested using an infra red lamp, but
the attempt was abandoned in fiasco with a screaming, embarrassed, old
lady, holding her clothes over her breasts, resisting all cajoling by
her daughter and grandsons.

Attempts at "man-to-man talk" with parents only got soft, ominous
whispers as, "Your Grandmother's getting old. The only thing wrong is
sheer old age. She might not be with us much longer." Then one, dark
November morning, before we were getting off for the Glasgow train to
our classes and week-long lodgings, my mother came out of her bed and
down to the kitchen. She crystallised in words what we had both been
silently thinking: "I think you should take your last look, boys, at
your Grannie before you leave...For I don't think you'll be seeing her
alive again." We tip-toed up and stood half a minute by the bed of an
old lady, wheezing, whistling, snoring. When we walked into the 6:30 am
damp, it seemed the darkest, quietest morning I had ever known.

The college week sped by and we got engrossed in other issues. Until on
Thursday evening, my brother looked up from his study books and said,
"Well, no telephone, looks like my Grannie is hanging right in there."
Friday passed unbearably slowly. By 6:30 pm we had arrived on the
evening train at Ardrossan. November 5. It was a beautiful cold clear
night, Guy Fawkes Night with the traditional fireworks bursting in the
air. In the company of David and Billy, we walked briskly home.

They parted with "Give your Grannie our best wishes, fellows" and we
hurried the last 2 minutes home.

Coming round the corner, we noticed all the house lights burning--bar
one. On bursting over the step, we met a startled Aunt Agnes. "Oh boys,
didn't you meet your father? He walked down to meet your train? Boys,
your Grannie died last night in her sleep."

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Two months later, one of those second year-at-university "boys" asked
his mother what his Grandmother had died of. Surprised, she said, "Why,
cancer, of course!? Cancer of the bowel." "But what about the doctor?
He was treating her for calcium deficiency!"

"Well he had to give her something!"