On November 19 of 2021 my maternal grandmother, which was practically my second mother, a big friend, soulmate and my biggest cheerleader passed away after twenty-one years of graciously swerving an aggressive cancer. All doctors involved in her treatments spoke on how much of a miracle her treatment journey was, and the high quality of life she experienced.
Despite her “medical success” being out of the norm, none of the medical practitioners focused on that upon her death, the thing I heard the most was about how positive my grandma has been for all this time. She was always kind to the nurses, never refused treatments, and even during painful procedures she would exclaim “I want to live! I will do whatever it takes for me to live!“.
Earlier this year mum reluctantly told me about this new cancer that showed up. “We are watching it and doing treatments” – She’d say in a reassuring voice. But we both knew something was not right. The Covid situation was horrible back in Brazil, and I feared not only for my health but for my parents and my grandma’s.
In a text message, her oncologist told me “If I were you, I’d come tomorrow”. I stuffed all my fears down my gut and bought a ticket to go see her, help my mom, my grandpa, my family. The day before my flight an uncle I loved very much died of Covid in the ICU and a panic attack washed over me. I simply couldn’t go, all that fear I had swallowed, consumed me, and all I could think of was “what if I kill her?“. So I stared at all my suitcases, cried my eyes out, and ashamed of it all, asked my husband to tell people I had backed out of my trip.
The next month was pure agony. The days merged together and the nights dragged along – A slow-motion disaster scene where I sat right in the middle trying to shield my grandma but being way too far to protect or distract her from this unavoidable disgrace. Finally, she got her booster shot, and I got an immense boost of confidence, bought the plane tickets and flew to Brazil four days after.
I quarantined for her safety, and I told myself, “I am here now. I just need to wait, so I should do as much work as possible so I can focus on her once the negative tests come through at the end of my quarantine”. In that hotel room, I sat typing empty words, and the only boxes I ticked on my planner were the days that passed. I was a prisoner of my own mind and anticipated grief.
The feeling I experienced on the Friday I drove to her home to see her again, was like opening a gift next to the Christmas tree. The butterflies soared from my stomach and freed from the anticipation they danced around my face putting the biggest smile on both our faces. When I looked at her there was nothing I wanted to do more than just fluff her pillows, get her favourite foods, warm her feet, listen to her voice, drive her to doctor appointments, advocate for her, do my best to help her heal.
And from that day onwards I had a sense of deep purpose and managed to do bits of work whilst she managed to rest after a difficult morning of pain and no appetite. Her radiotherapy specialist gave me positive news, it seemed like we could potentially get her back home and give her more quality of life, and so I planned to fly back to Canada, to focus on doing work, see my husband and fly back for Christmas.
On the day we said goodbye, she could not kiss me because of the breathing machine she had to use several times a day to help her breathe better. That was the only day we both silently cried and held one another, I made her promise me no funny business while I was gone. And we swore to meet again for Christmas. She knew I would keep my word, but the tears that streamed down her face told me she thought she could not keep hers. She said “you give me so much life, I love you”, I blew many kisses back through the air as I closed the hospital door behind me. My dad held my hand firmly like he never did before and I let out the most painful cry, but I tried to keep it together for my little sister watching me break like this.
I didn’t learn anything from the previous months, flying back would not enable me to do any work. Being in Brazil was hard work, but it gave me short windows of inspiration and motivation. Her presence washed me with a tsunami of optimism, happiness and hope, and I truly believed I’d come back on Christmas without the weight of my deadlines allowing me to focus on her. Unfortunately, as my plane rapidly moved through the ground, I gasped for air and my eyes overflowed before the plane was in the air. That’s when I knew I had made a big mistake.
Four is a number disliked in Chinese culture because it sounds like ‘death’. And exactly four days after I left her in Brazil, on the 19th of November she left this earth as I whispered to her through facetime that I loved her, and that I did not want to see her suffer, thanked her for the immeasurable love and the amazing life we had together, she took her last breath while my sister and little cousin held her hands.
Since that Friday I live in the inertia of my grief. My mind and heart usually roads with permanent flowing traffic, now troubling me with their emptiness. My body feels like an empty shell occupied by my mangled soul that crawled and manage to squeeze itself entirely in the pit of my stomach.
Although I have failed miserably until now, I will keep trying my hardest to embody her happiness, her willingness to live and all the magic things that make her so alive inside of me. Love songs, emotional movies and romantic books are filled with persons with so much love for each other that they are willing to die for one another. The days that followed that Friday taught me that to be willing to die is not how I will honour her story and everything I learned from her in these miraculous thirty-something years. To be willing to live is more important, and so I have put all my energy into staying alive, while I ride the inertia of my grief. Irritated at the lack of ability to produce work, but alive to tell her life story another day.
