Is it okay to wish someone were dead?
Of course not.

Because we speak a Gentler English.

Is it okay to wish someone would just let go?
Of course it is.

Because no one likes to see a loved one suffer.

Same thing, really.  Just different words.  Different tact.  Different approach.

My grandmother is not doing well.  I can't remember a time when she ever was, really. 
Arthritic.  Heart issues.  Those things don't go away, they just become more complicated.
I think she was almost or about 40 when my dad was born.  He was 21 when I was born, a few days away from 22.  She was always older than the other grandmothers. 
Always older.
Not that it stopped her from doing anything. 

No one else's grandmother got on the floor to play with us.
Or took us to the library.
The big one downtown and the smaller branches all over town.
Just so we could see the differences.
Or collected shells and leaves and fishbones with us on the beach.
And tadpoles and worms and violets in the yard.
Or let us pick the vegetables out of the garden and the cherries off the tree.
Or climbed the dogwood to show us how it's done.
Or let us use the typewriter.
Or the sewing machine.
Or the stove.
Or the sharp knives.
Or the big old good KitchenAid mixer
Taught us how to bake, making sure that we knew it is more important to make a good pie than it is a good meal. 
Apple
Peach
Mincemeat
Cherry
Blueberry
Rhubarb
all in the same day.
You could only tell them apart by the fruit picture we poked into the top crust.  Tiny little lacerations in the shape of
Apples
Peaches
Mincemeats
Cherries
Blueberries
Rhubarbs
How do you poke a mincemeat?  You don't.  You just do your initials.  So everyone knows who the baker is.
No one else did these things with us.

She did. 
"Pain is just a part of life", she would tell us.  "Just learn how to work around it".
She did.

I don't understand why she is still alive.  She lost her husband more than two years ago.  She can't walk.  She hurts.  Her children don't live nearby.  They are all doing well.  Just as their children are.  And their children's children.  Her friends are mostly gone.  Her brothers.

Sometimes I bet to myself that it was the way she was raised.
Hellfire and damnation. 
No drinking no dancing no music no fun.
Ever see that Kevin Bacon movie where he moved to a weird little town and all he wanted to do was dance! but no one else would dance? 
That's how she grew up.
Sometimes I bet she's afraid to go.
The way you were raised never seems to disappear.
No matter how old or smart or different you get.

Her parents shunned one of her brothers when they found out that he smoked cigarettes and went to a moving picture show.  Didn't speak to him for months.  Didn't want the badness to rub off on anyone else.  Didn't want the badness to reflect their parenting.  Their faith.
That's not the way they raised him, they said under their breath as they shook their heads, which were bowed in shame and prayer.
I love that story.
The bad seed brother laughed about it as he told that story.  My grandmother can't believe he had the gall to pull it off, they weren't raised that way and her hands would shake when as he told that story.

Her parents were disappointed that she married someone who collected jazz records.  Who didn't graduate college.  Who only wore shoes with leather soles because he might find himself on a linoleum floor, or maybe a waxed wooden one. 
Perfect for dancing.
Perfect for burning in hell.

I wonder if there is a place in her heart that tells her brain that she is going to hell for something she did.
Like didn't press a crease in her socks or missed a spot on the drapes when she took them down to scrub the evils of summertime breezes out of them.
I mean seriously, I can't imagine what kind of nonsense was drilled in her head while growing up.
If I believed in hell and thought I was going there, I might want to hold on to all the pain and suffering of life too.

She never spoke of her faith, and I wonder if she lost it a bit (a lot?) after she left home.  Maybe she saw how silly it all was once she got out of Iowa and saw that the rest of the world wasn't living like that.  She never talked about God or Jesus or Sin or Purity.  Never once.
Never told us to say our prayers.  Just told us to
Be Good
and
Study Hard.
Education was her greatest virtue.  She pressed it upon me to the highest degree.
She wonders when I'm going to Buckle Down and get my PhD.
My Masters is worth nothing, in This Day and Age, she says.

Sometimes I wonder if she is afraid she will get into heaven and her husband won't be there.  He never bought into any of it beyond saying grace before dinner.

sugar in the coffee
cream in the mix
spoon in the coffee
spoon in the mouth
spoon on the saucer

"sit down and eat, Sara"

Godblessthisfoodtoourgood
Inchrist'sname
amen.

knife in the butter.
butter on the food
food in the mouth
chew everything 27 times
helps with digestion

salt in the hand
salt in the tomato juice
juice down the hatch
helps with digestion

Watching that man eat was an art.  A predictable, comforting, ritualistic art.

But he never bought in to the beliefs.
There is a rumor going around the family that he found Jesus on his deathbed, my (very religious) father by his side.
This rumor is propulgated by my (very religious) father, who probably sleeps better thinking that his dad got Saved! at the eleventh hour.
I call bullshit.
I think his acceptance- assuming there even was one- was Gentler English for
"Shut the hell up, boy, can't you see I'm trying to die here?"

When I die, I want to enjoy it.  The sounds, the smells, the sights that your brain produces as it shuts down.
I don't want someone yammering in my ear about what they believe what happens next.
I don't care what happens next.
I care what happens now.
I want to watch my life pass before my eyes and live it all over again.
One last time.
In peace.

What is this about anyway?
This post?
This life?

I just want her to let go. 
I want to stop wondering how much pain she is in every time I think of her.
I want to stop wondering if her brain is torturing her soul.
Or if it's the other way around.
I want to start forgetting the way she looks and feels now and start remembering the way she looked and felt then.
I want her to stop the way she looks and feels now.

I wish my grandmother was dead.