Grandma.

Grandpa is snoring with a blanket over his head.

“He’s in Hawaii,” Grandma tells us.

Lately he’s been going places that his body will never again reach. This afternoon we visited with his sisters and he told them in his low, quavering voice that he would be going golfing tomorrow. When he needs to be taken to the bathroom, to be hauled and shoved and cleaned and undressed and dressed, he goes to Hawaii, again.

Grandma sits back on the couch as we talk about the strange balancing act her life has become. We talk about death with dry eyes, it’s such a commonplace topic these days, now that Grandpa has begun to hear things that no one else hears, see things that are not visible to anyone else.

“In the hospice booklet they say illusions,” Grandma says, “I say illusions my ass, but to each their own.”

Last week, when Mom, Sis and Grandma took Grandpa on what may very well have been his last trip, he told Mom to go back into the hallway to see a painting that looked like me, but it wasn’t there.

Now, Grandma sits back on the couch and looks very tired.

“When people ask, you know, what I’m going to do when he passes,” she says, thoughtful, “I think I’d just like to rent a room somewhere…and just sleep for a week.” She shakes her head a little. “It sounds funny, but that’s what I’d like to do. No cell phones, nothing, just sleep for a long time.”

photo credit: natron dreaming via photopin cc