A Storied Life

by Leigh Kramer

My wavering voice added to hers, calling up the lyrics from the recesses of my memory. More voices joined in chorus with each word. “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

  The room stood holy and sacred. Hands held, arms slung around shoulders, tears mingled. The Frasiers united as one. Gram's prayers had been answered.

  A cousin moved us onto a few of Gram's favorite songs. We’d never sung as a family before but it seemed entirely perfect to do so now. Gram's breathing didn't change, nor did her heart rate. She was somewhere between earth and heaven.

  The social worker told me once no one knew for sure what went on when a person became unconscious. “We like to say that it's between the person and God at that point,” she'd said, because people who should have died, held on and others died without warning. The process of death remained a mystery.

  As the last note sounded, someone suggested we each take a private moment with Gram. People milled around the house waiting their turn. Some escaped outside for a clandestine cigarette break, while others requested to go first because they didn't feel they could stay at the house much longer. I slipped away to call Reagan with an update. He offered to come out but I declined this time. As much as he was becoming a regular presence at family events, as much as I wanted the comfort of seeing him, I really only wanted to be with my family right now, surprising as it might be.

  Everyone trickled in and out of the room for the rest of the evening. I was in no rush for my turn. Hadn't I had the opportunity these past few weeks? Caregiving duties would be my responsibility again tonight, though I didn't know if we'd have the house to ourselves. I was used to scattered sleep and setting alarms to give medication; they were not. I didn't fault them for it anymore, even if I was scared I'd be alone when she'd died. At the same time, I made peace with the eventual outcome. Gram had prepared me for this the best she could.

  I didn't have to worry. Bethie murmured she'd crash in one of the guest rooms. Soon after, the house had emptied of most everyone else. At eleven, Mom found me sitting in the kitchen while I waited for Gram's room to clear out.

  “I'm going home, sweetie. Call me if you need anything,” she said. She peered into my eyes. “She picked the right person, Olivia. I'm proud of you.”

  Tears pricked at her unexpected praise. I barely had time to respond before she was out the door. I walked through the rooms and began shutting lights off. Ian and Uncle Jeff were sprawled on couches in the great room, already snoring. It was time to think about going to bed. I felt simultaneously exhausted and wide awake.

  I slipped on pajamas and grabbed a book and my journal. I settled in to the recliner shoved close to Gram's bedside. A lone lamp lit the room, providing respite from the darkness outside.

  “I'm right here, Gram,” I told her. If hearing was the last sense to leave, then I wanted to make sure I took advantage of it. I thought back to my last conversation with her, the last time we'd ever talk, though I didn't know it at the time.

  I'd been ambivalent about the changing of the guard yesterday. I needed to go home and sleep but I sensed things were changing more rapidly. I didn't know if it was fair for me to leave. I'd sat next to Gram for a while, hoping she'd have her good hour awake before I left. She'd opened her eyes and smiled woozily.

  “Do you need anything?” I'd asked.

  “Nope, I've got you,” she'd replied with a wide sleepy smile, her voice thick with morphine. She'd patted my hand. She'd drifted back off and I interpreted this to mean I should stay. Pam, in the end, convinced me to keep plans the way they were. I'd kissed Gram goodbye, asleep but cognizant, and in the span of twenty-four hours, returned to find her a shell of who she was.

  A restlessness rose within me. I eyed the lorazepam sitting on the bedside table. Maybe a little anti-anxiety medication would do the trick. My inner good girl protested and I paced the room instead.

  There was no sense in sleeping when I would have to wake every two hours to give her another dose of something. Better to keep watch. If I could make it through the night, someone would relieve me in the morning. I sat back down and tried to read but my gaze was drawn to Gram. Her whole body was involved in her effort to breathe and the breaths came slower. I'd never listened to a cadence like it. Even though I detected a rasp, the death rattle stayed at bay.

  Let go, I thought. Let go, let go, let go. This wasn't the life she wanted. I didn't want to lose her but she couldn't continue on like this. My heart hung on every intake of breath, as the pause in between became longer. I looked at her, trying to find some sign of the end, but she continued that same slow, raspy breathing.

  I set the book to the side, tapping my foot. My heart argued with my mind. Tell her or not? She couldn't respond either way. Was it fair for my secret to be some of the last words she heard? I couldn't take the tension anymore.

  Perhaps telling Reagan the story first eased the way for the abbreviated PG-rated version Gram received. But I couldn't stop there. Words flowed out of me almost faster than I could speak. Gram knew me better than most, but she’d still had an incomplete picture. I talked about how I'd felt when Dad died, scattered memories of Pop, the way I wanted to measure up as a Frasier, and where I thought my calling might be. I talked about Reagan and how he fit in seamlessly in to my life and how this scared me, almost more than the thought of losing Gram. Years of pent-up reflections about who I thought I was spilled into the room. Gram's body raised and contracted with each breath while I talked. There was no response. I might as well have been talking to a wall.

  “Can't you tell me anything, Gram?” I pleaded. I'd waited too long. The days of Gram dispensing advice were gone. I couldn't keep her here for my sake.

  The grandfather clock struck four, resounding through the house. I prepared the next round of medication, carefully dispensing the liquid gold underneath her tongue and waiting for it to absorb. Her skin felt cool to the touch but she continued her labored breathing.

  “It's okay to rest, Gram,” I told her, hoping I meant it. I kissed her on the cheek. “We'll miss you but we'll be fine. We'll make you proud.”

  I waited to see if this changed anything. The same rise and fall, the same few second gap between breaths. I held my own breath with each silence until she breathed again.

  I laid my head down on the edge of her hospital bed. It was between her and God now but that didn't mean I couldn't add my two cents.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. Sunlight played against my closed eyelids. I stretched, confused when my outstretched arm met fabric. I peeled my eyes open and saw I'd slept in a recliner. Why was I sleeping in a recliner?

  The beeping continued as realization dawned. Medication time. Gram. I sat up straight and looked over. The sun blanketed her bed. I imagined it was a nice way to start the day. I fumbled with my phone and turned the alarm off. It was six. I must have nodded off. I felt hungover with only one or two hours of sleep in me.

  “Morning, Gram.” I untangled my legs from the chair and started toward the medication bin. Then I stopped. Something wasn't right.

  Birds chirped outside the window, distracting me. I stood frozen in the ray of light patterning the floor; the sun warmed my feet. I tried to place my uneasiness. The room was silent.

  It shouldn't have been completely silent. My ears waited for the sound of Gram's next breath. Surely it was coming. I couldn't turn around to look at her. I waited. And nothing. The quiet sounded like a roar when you didn't hear the one thing you needed to hear.

  Any moment, Gram's body would heave with another raspy sigh. This was just the gap. Justin had warned me that people's breaths become more spaced out as their time drew to an end. Gram's time was getting closer, but it hadn't happened yet.

  It couldn't have happened yet.

  I needed to hear her breathe but she wouldn't. Why wouldn't she breathe? I forced myself to turn around.

  She lay in the hospital bed exactly as I had left her last night. Her mouth open, her eyes closed, her head
to the side. She didn't move.

  “Gram,” I said, tentative. She wouldn't die apart from my witness. She wouldn't slip away like that. I just needed her to breathe again. One more time and then she could go. I promised I would let her go.

  But not yet. Please not yet.

  I inched toward the bed, not ready to confirm what my heart already knew. I stretched my hand out toward hers and met cold flesh. I recoiled.

  “Gram!” I yelled. I forced myself to touch her again. I shook her but she wouldn't wake up. “Don't do this. Please don't do this.”

  I sunk to the floor next to the bed and screamed.

  “I can't do this without you. I don't know how to do this,” I cried to no one. My fists pounded the floor but I couldn't feel anything.

  She was gone and I had abandoned her in her time of need. I had not lived up to my end of the bargain. None of it. I deserved to suffer. I sobbed and hit the floor until arms wrapped around me and pulled me back from my crouched stance.

  “Olivia, stop,” Ian pleaded. “Please, calm down.”

  Uncle Jeff ran in to the room. “Mom?” He stopped at the bed. “Oh, Mom.”

  My hair cascaded around my face as I cried in to Ian's chest. “I failed her. She's dead and I couldn't even stay awake to see her out of this world. I can't do anything right.”

  I couldn't stop crying, made worse by the weeks of sleep deprivation. Understanding the source of your sorrow didn’t make it easier to control. Bethie and Jeff gathered around us, moving between soothing me to Gram's bed for their own closure.

  Ian patted my back and did what he could to calm me down. Gram had died. I couldn't understand it. We should have had more time. I should have done more to keep her comfortable. I would have to live with my failure for the rest of my life.

  I heaved a sigh as my tears dried up and patted Ian's arm, unable to say more. Then I picked myself up from the floor and approached the bed again.

  “I love you, Gram,” I said and kissed her cheek one last time. “I'm sorry.”

  * * *

  There were so many people in the room. Too many people. I sat curled up in the recliner beneath a pile of blankets. I could not stop shivering. I stared at the canvas Gram had directed me to hang across from her bed. She'd said she wanted to see the two of us happy together whenever she opened her eyes. I couldn't reconcile the life and laughter caught in paint to the lifeless body in the hospital bed.

  “She's in shock,” someone said. I didn't understand why everyone else wasn't. It didn't matter we'd known the moment was coming. She had lived and now she didn't. I would never understand why.

  Justin squatted next to me. I slowly turned toward him and tried to focus.

  “You did everything right, Olivia. You have to believe me,” he said. I nodded. That's what everyone wanted to see.

  “People choose how and when they want to die. It wouldn't have mattered if you'd stayed awake all night. She would have waited for the second you went to the bathroom. For whatever reason, your grandmother did not want you to have the memory of her last breath.” He looked intently at me. His words wouldn't penetrate. Instead, I stared at the stethoscope around his neck. The one he'd held to her heart to confirm her death.

  I forced myself to return his gaze and nod understanding. I wanted this part over with.

  A woman with rich umber skin came next to Justin and leaned down toward me. “Olivia, I'm Norma, the chaplain. Your uncle requested I visit when he called the office about your grandmother. I'm so sorry for your loss. Ella May was truly a delight.”

  I took in her kind face, missing the usual lines and wrinkles that accompanied silvering hair. We hadn’t met before, though Gram had thought much of her. I turned toward Gram to let her know Norma was there and then froze, remembering. I swallowed hard before looking back at Norma.

  “Thank you for coming,” I murmured, returning her handshake. How strange to still be deferred to in a sea of Frasiers. It wouldn't last much longer.

  Justin turned to address the crowd. “The funeral home is here. Anyone who wants to can stay while they prepare the body. Otherwise, why don't the rest of you head to the large room downstairs? Maybe Norma can read a prayer over you all?” Norma nodded agreement. “Then, if you'd like, you can accompany the stretcher outside.”

  I didn’t want to stay for this, nor did it seem anyone else did. Chatter filled the room as people picked up purses and mugs. Reagan picked off the blankets covering me and helped me stand up. I blinked. I didn’t know when he’d arrived. With his arm around me, we took the stairs slowly. I felt like a child being guided by a parent. Who would guide me now?

  Once everyone had found a seat, Norma stood at the front of the room near Gram's chair. The chair she'd never sit in again.

  “We know there are no words to make our sorrow better. When we have been loved by someone like Ella May, we hurt knowing this is the end. And yet, we also know this is not truly the end for her or for us.” Norma's hands steepled in contemplation. I stared at her and willed her words to sink in. Gram was in heaven. I needed to remember the hope in that. Was there hope in that?

  Norma continued. “I'd like to share with you a prayer adapted from a poem written by William Penn.” She retrieved a piece of paper from the small Bible she carried. “'We give back, to you, O God, Ella May who you gave to us. You did not lose her when you gave her to us, and we did not lose her by her return to you. Your dear Son has taught us that life is eternal and love cannot die. So death is only a horizon, and a horizon is only the limit of our sight. Open our eyes to see more clearly, and draw us closer to you that we may know that we are nearer to our loved ones, who are with you. You have told us that you are preparing a place for us: prepare us also for that happy place, that where you are we may also be always, O dear Lord of life and death.'”

  “Amen” mingled with the sound of muffled crying. My eyes remained dry, though my heart bled. If death was only a horizon, my sight was severely limited today. I didn't see the purpose of Gram's death. I didn't believe she would live forever but it wasn't fair for her to be taken this soon. Questions pounded through my head. Why hadn't I kept watch?

  Over the next few days, my emotions swelled despite my detachment. I would not let myself break down. The mission was simple—make it through the visitation and funeral. While I appreciated all who came to mourn Gram's death, I could not mourn with them.

  Exhaustion consumed me but I couldn't sleep. I barely ate. I ignored the concerned looks directed my way. I went through the motions of the dedicated granddaughter and accepted people's praise of how well I had cared for her during these last several weeks. I knew the truth of how I had failed her.

  By the time Thursday morning rolled around, I was not sure how much more I could take. My mind wandered throughout the funeral. The pastor's eulogy may have been a timeless praise of Gram's character but I didn't hear one word.

  Suzy and Mei approached me after the service to offer condolences, their expressions concerned. Suzy didn't address my haggard appearance, for which I was grateful.

  “You don't need to come to the exhibit tomorrow, Olivia. Everything's under control. You should spend time with your family, catch up on rest, that sort of thing,” she said.

  “I know you're concerned, Suzy, but I'm fine and I want to support Reagan. There's no reason not to go to the exhibit,” I said with determination. I'd be there. What else did I have to live for anymore?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Do you want me to drop you off or find a parking spot?” Zanne's boyfriend Patrick asked from the driver's seat. They'd insisted on bringing me to the exhibit. Reagan had to be there early for obvious reasons and he hadn't been keen on me showing up alone either. The kid gloves were starting to get on my nerves.

  “You can park in the back of the building. I'm sure there will be spots left, since that's where I would've parked.” A subtle reminder of my capability.

  Zanne twisted in the passenger seat so she could face m
e. “I know you would have been perfectly fine driving yourself tonight. But you've hardly been to the gallery the last few weeks and you lost one of the most important people in your life four days ago. Please let us do this for you.”

  Chastened, I sagged in my seat and thanked them for this kindness. Their support mattered, even if I wasn't attending the exhibit in an official capacity. Suzy would be on my case if I tried to glad hand anyone. I didn't quite know what I would do with myself. Maybe I could blend in with the crowd and figure out the gallery's place in my life. At the very least, I wanted to be there for Reagan. It was time for me to focus on my part of our relationship. I didn't want him to question what he'd originally seen in me.

  “It'll be good to get back in to the swing of things,” I said with more confidence than I felt. I led Zanne and Patrick through the wreck of a storage room.

  “Watch your step. No clue what hazards await back here,” I cautioned them. My four-inch heels teetered as I navigated the obstacle course, but I chalked it up to the peril of walking in high heels instead of my continued exhaustion. Once we'd made it to the office area, we were in the clear.

  Guests were due to arrive starting in another hour. I'd thought about showing up then as well and even using the front door. But I couldn't help myself. This gallery was my baby. Suzy could happily handle the details and chaos tonight. I didn't doubt her ability, but I felt compelled to walk through before anyone else came and make sure everyone had what they needed.

  We entered the gallery space. My friends went to the left where a temporary bar was set up, while I went to the right. I took a deep breath. This would be good for me. Oak Park and Geneva were entirely different worlds. Few people here would know about Gram or that I'd spent little time at Madison Gallery the past few weeks.

  I knew this place and it knew me. The three columns in the center of the gallery showcased three very different themes. I wanted to spend time with each artist and do what I could to promote their work. Suzy headed my way, wearing a black knee-length bodycon dress. Her jet black hair was swept up into a double-knotted twist. She looked edgy and elegant.