QUOTE: TAKE YOUR LAST LOOK, BOYS, ENDQUOTE

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 walk (neighbour-assisted) down the hill 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."

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!"