Chapter 22

Yesterday I learned my grandmother has two months to a year left to live. Why does it matter so much to me? She raised me. My mom abandoned me to join some cult, and nobody ever heard from her again.

A few months ago, doctors found a cyst on my grandmother's lung. They planned to remove it, along with the lower lobe of her lung. A minor operation. But shortly thereafter, she became sick, and they couldn’t operate until she became well. She never became well. This month they discovered my mother’s lungs were covered in cancer, a fast-growing sarcoma that would fill her chest cavity. Her body’s already not making any new blood.

It all happened so fast. The last time I saw her was in May, at my brother’s graduation. Admittedly, she was starting to look a little old, but she was, after all, over sixty. Still, she had seemed to age all of a sudden. Then, in a few months, the cyst. Then, the sickness. Now, she’s going to die within a year. I don’t know how my grandfather will survive this news. He’s already had so many strokes. How can he survive it? If he does survive the news, I doubt he will survive her death.

And here I sit in Richardson, TX, a flurry of disappointments. I’m living with my girlfriend, which they do not approve of, I’m getting a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, which they consider a waste of their money, and, and this is a disappointment for me as well as my grandmother, she will never get to see her grandchildren. She’ll be dead before any are conceived. But right now, I have to finish the semester. Grandma won’t be home much before then anyway, I don’t think. Then I’ll take some time off from work and fly home. It may be the last time I see her. I know my grandmother. The news of her immanent death (they are supposed to tell her today) alone could kill her. It’s already beginning to kill a little bit of me.