Her colorless complexion is the first thing I notice when we enter.
My youngest daughter is leading me, her supplies of books and colors and printed pages of princesses and her purse all scrambled about coated arms. She’s every bit of girly I wasn’t. Sure, I could appreciate a red-headed Mermaid, the haunting songs of a beautiful blonde who touched a spinning wheel at sixteen. I liked pink, enough. But this girl I get to raise, the one who tries to boss me around, she goes far beyond whatever capacity I had for priss at her age. It’s fantastic fun.  

“Hi Grandma,” I say on behalf of both of us.
“Oh hi, Sweetheart.” Her voice swells and dips in the timbre she reserves for her family. If she wasn’t in a hospital bed she’d be heading straight for my kidneys, patting them until they were loose pinballs lighting up points. She’s known for this gesture. I may have even blogged about it before. You’re “in,” if Grandma makes your organs sore.

We settle. Well, the little one unloads her suitcase of “at-all-times-needed items” and I put my purse out of the way.

“How are you?” As the words come out I put an easy hand on her shin, a mound beneath blankets.
“I’m mad.” And I chuckle. It’s just so Grandma.
“Yeah, why?” She’s chuckling too, one of her greatest qualities. Laughing at herself. I take a second to make a mental note to be so spunky in my old age.
“They just came in a did a test and said I might not go home. And this morning I got up and showered, put together my things, because they said I would go home.” 

Her shoes sit parallel on the couch as if the second the nurses turn their heads the shoes will be running, with her in them.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” 
Crooked fingers comb the top of her head. “I guess there’s still fluid around my heart, but that’s what they’ve been working on.” The fingers fly out and her words end in a bite. “I don’t understand why they can’t figure it out.”
“Ugh, that is frustrating.” 

“It’s snowing!” my daughter yells through bites of cheese. Her snack was in the purse.

For the next hour we visit. I take the occasional break to hear comments from the pee-wee peanut gallery about varying shades of purple, or to quiet feet that need to tap.
I ask about family news, knowing that will brighten even her worst of days.

At one point she stops in exasperation. “I mean I’m almost 83.” As in, enough already. Time to get on with the whole dying thing because she doesn’t have any patience for the hospital scene.

Please, God, when I’m hooked to drip bag and I’m nearing a century, let me sass like that. I beg of You.

“Hopefully if you have to stay tonight it will be your last.” (I probably should have been more precise in meaning that she wouldn’t have to be in a hospital, not last night..ever.)  

“Yes, that’s right.” Her Christian upbringing and vintage values tell her to be grateful. I hear the way she’s forcing it. But she’s adorably still ticked off.  

One word begins to connect to the next. In this room that is as shadowed as the parking lot out her window, I see a nap reaching for her. It’s more than a nap, though. She’s weary, this woman whom we forget to call, who comes to our football parties content to watch us more than the sport and sip a Diet Coke. Her time is about done while we keep busying ourselves with all the things that will also discard us when we get old.

A loud, relentless thought grabs me in that moment: she needs to be hugged, touched by another. How her arms likely ache to wrap around a fellow soul. How her cheek might want to brush another cheek. How long it’s been since she’s bruised our sides with her love beatings.
No longer does her husband, his body tucked in a grave next to her plot, come home with a kiss.
Much less often, and with weak knees, does she steal an embrace from one of her grandbabies.
For the rest of her days, she’ll sleep alone.

The fistful of crayons that are the “chosen” few are thrown back into the bag. We bundle up for the cold. We gather the stacks of papers that sneak to the floor as Little One chatters and sings and chatters.

I wonder if she wonders as the goodbye is nearing, if we’ll do more than say it. If we’ll show it.

“By Grandma. Love you.” I squeeze her face against mine. “Take care of you.”
“Thanks for coming, Sweetheart.” She loves so much, even those of us who simply married into her big brood. “Tell Chase hi. Love you.”

Hours later I am looking both ways and beginning to merge onto the street where we live when my phone beeps for me.
“Hi Grandma.”
“I just had to tell you that another doctor came in and said I could go home.”

I cheer. With abandon.