He'd line us up after he got home from work. My Grandma, then me, then his adult children who would visit during the week, and then my cousins. He'd kiss my Grandma on the lips first on the lips because she was his first love and then go on to kiss the rest of us on both cheeks and say our names and compliment us on something he'd noticed because we were his little loves. On the weekends, we'd all work in his office and scatter across one of the three floors he had so that we could work properly. He'd play Carlos Gardel over the system and once we were done working, we'd all get together and do the tango, Grandma was always his partner because she wasn't just the best of us, they were meant for each other and she was the one who looked the best in his arms.
We used to have to go to these diplomatic dinners and galas and he'd often give speeches, he'd always look directly at her, no matter how large the crowd was or who was in it, he'd look directly into her eyes, no matter how far away she was. She loved every moment of every gala she went to because she was his wife, she'd get dressed up in these gowns and her furs and her jewellery, put on her lipstick, do her hair just the way he liked it, and wear the perfume. Even after she got sick, she always wore that perfume and she always got dolled up to go out with him. There's this photo of them together from 1967 with some stunner of a silver screen siren wearing a slinky dress and he's looking behind the star directly at my Grandma. He couldn't keep his eyes from her and he'd ask me about her, he'd ask me if I thought she'd done something different with her hair because it had more volume or if she'd changed her nail colour.
Then she got sick, like terribly sick, to the point where getting ready for every day would have seemed silly. So he did it for her, he held the bobby pins in his mouth and hair sprayed her hair, he looked at old photos of how she did her makeup and kept a hand on her face so he could gently tilt it every which way, he put her sunscreen on for her, and he managed to make her able to seem like she wasn't sick. She couldn't really walk but still wanted to and so he half carried her to the door so she could greet her visitors and he helped her lean against our piano so she could turn his pages. And then her memory sort of went and she'd fly into these furies because she couldn't stay in our time with us, she'd go back into the 60s in a second and then be forced into the 2010s and she'd just get so so upset with herself. So he got rid of the modern things in our home, told me to hang up my modern clothes, and we lived in the 60s with her so she'd stay with us for a while longer.
She had this fixation with the moon and she lost the need to sleep at night and so he'd move their bed so she could watch every phase of the moon and then he'd keep at it through the day so the sun didn't hurt her eyes. He'd sit and watch the moon landing with her and pretend to be surprised, he'd squeeze her hand at all of the right moments and point things out to her about the moon and the view of our home on Earth from the moon. He took her to the planetarium and then started keeping the room dark so that she'd be able to see the star stickers he'd covered it with. He'd read her Hamlet and he'd fall asleep in the middle of sentences and she'd shake him awake and he'd have to pretend that he'd just closed his eyes for a moment and remind her that he'd been up all night reading to her and she'd say that he was just bored.
Then it got bad, like really bad, so he took her to the hospital and they told him that they'd misdiagnosed her and that this was the end. The hospital had hospice come but he didn't want her in the hospital and he didn't want the hospital in our home so that was that. He did everything. He carried her to the bathroom, washed her hair, did her makeup, got her dressed, and conveniently carried on the illusion that she was well. Then his brother arrived and saw what was going on and finally told him that it was time to let things come to an end. So all of us got together, the entire family and all of our friends, and she was able to finally pass in peace. We all got to speak with her because she was still there and he told her that he'd like her to wait patiently on the other side for just a bit and he'd be right next to her before she even started to realise that they'd ever been apart.
We were all sitting quietly after she'd died when his face was illuminated by a pure ray of light and he announced to us all that he'd better start getting affairs in order. I was so angry with him for such a long time, I cornered him in the kitchen and demanded to know why he thought he could just die when I needed him, what about me? What would I have done without him? But he was set in his ways and he wasn't interested in being alive without her. To him, there was no point in living if it wasn't with her. He was obsessed with the idea of death after she died. He'd sit with her urn and talk to thin air, he painted the nails of his left hand in her colour and wore all of her rings and bracelets and held "her" hand with his, and he would call the funeral home every few hours so he could be sure that everything was ready for him to go and that nothing would become an inconvenience to us. He was obsessed with visiting the cemetery near our home just in case he could catch a glimpse of her spirit and he'd walk through the funeral home and admire the views and the various bland paintings that they had on display.
Then he took me out one day, I refer to this as our last good day. We went out to the museum we loved, we went to the historical home we loved, we went to the book shop we loved, and we went to the stationary store we loved. He bought new paper for his typewriter and drawing pencils and we stopped for tea on our way home and he sketched a drawing of her as we sat and he had his Earl Grey and I had my Green with Lemon. I rested my head on his shoulder and we sat together in silence for a while before we went home. Everything was very quiet for the next two mornings but on the third morning, he walked in through the door carrying his typewriter, went into his office, and typed until I heard the keys stop typing. It was very obvious it was a stroke when I went in and saw him at his desk and it was very obvious that if I made a fuss, I would have disrupted him. So I held his hand, closed my eyes, and sat with him until I felt him leave the room. There was no time for him to suffer and he didn't fear death, he wanted to die and he was looking forward to slipping away, what was left of him had died when she'd died and, had I bothered calling anyone for help, he would've already been long gone by the time they'd've arrived.
Such a beautiful story... filled with devotion
❤️❤️🥺
