Page 102 of Totally Shipped
“I’ll stay with you, but Leander and Killian need to make sure Daisy is getting the rest she needs.”
“Agreed.”
“And as soon as Meemaw is… as soon as she is able, they can all come meet her. Meemaw can meet Thea, alright?”
“Right. Now, as Meemaw would say, be off like a herd of turtles.”
“That one never made any sense.”
I look fondly down at the sleeping old woman.
“But we’d never argue with her, or she’d cream our corn!”
???
We stayed in Jefferson for three nights. The hours pass in that way which is unique to hospitals; indescribably strange. Meemaw is awake and cognizant for maybe fifty percent of the time. When she is, we’d tell stories, and laugh, and try to pack as much joy into those moments as possible, and when she slides out of focus, I want to punch the wall.
I’d missed so much time with her.
I should never have gone to Samoa, but Meemaw had insisted.
“It’s only a year, Rexie-boy. Nanda and Nikau need your help—don’t worry about me, I’ll still be here when you get back.”
Meemaw had a large circle of friends, and had set up a fiercely independent lifestyle after Pops died a decade ago.
I wanted to be angry at my father: he’d only come to the hospital a couple of times, but truthfully I just felt sorry for him. I’d always had such a good relationship with Meemaw, and now she was surrounded with love, from my friends, my lover, my child…What did he have?
Not a grandchild. I don’t mention to him that I am one of Thea’s dads.
Meemaw was just delighted with Thea. We lay the baby next to her, close to her wrinkled, withered cheek. Leander, with a new phone, takes photo after photo. I know I’ll thank him for those in the future.
“She’s as sweet as sugar on a plum. You tell her that Meemaw will always love her now, won’t you?”
Of course we will.
Meemaw said the house was mine, and to do with it whatever I liked. Something to chew on later, but obviously Nanda, Nikau, and Key can stay there as long as they like.
More hours pass. Killian brings us sandwiches. Daisy goes to theAirbnbto shower and sleep.
It was heading towards the evening when the nurse had told us it wouldn’t be much longer.
And then she died just before midnight.
GRAY
Meemaw asked to see me alone.
Sometimes she was lucid and sometimes her mind wandered off into a dreaming world where we couldn’t make sense of what she was saying.
But she was lucid when she said, “Rexie-boy, you go take some fresh-air. Me and Gray have some visitin’ to do.”
So off Rex went. Obedient to his grandmother, as he was to no one else.
I watched him leave then scooted my chair closer.
“Rex is in love?” Meemaw said, wasting no time.
“I . . . I think, no, I know he is.” I wonder how the old lady will handle our love-mash-up. “He loves Daisy and she loves him.”
