Dear... GG
I play your old voicemails on my phone sometimes because I've started to forget your voice. You aren't dead, but you aren't here anymore. You live six hours away now, and your tired body and mind can't remember my name anymore or even my face. But I remember you. I try to everyday.
I know it sounds evil, but I don't want to see you. I haven’t visited in a few years. Maybe I'm selfish, but it hurts too much to see you the way you are now because of your sickness. I know you would've wanted me to stay strong for you, but I don't think I can. I spent my life watching you disappear little by little and now it's like you're just a shell of the person you used to be before this syndrome infected your brain.
I hate the world for letting you get sick. I hate it for making you forget me and everybody else who loves you dearly. I hate it for stealing your chance to live out the rest of your life as a great-grandmother to all these kids. You only got to play that role properly for a few years before your brain couldn't keep up anymore.
I miss your laugh and the way you'd sing Frank Sinatra to yourself on the couch in your old living room. He was your favorite, and even now after your brain has slowly rotted away to barely anything, you can still sing some of his songs, even if the lyrics are broken up and incoherent sometimes.
It makes me jealous. I wish your brain was capable of remembering me, not just your favorite song. It's not your fault that you can't remember, but I have so much pent up anger at the world for stealing you away from me. I was too little to make any valuable memories with you when you were still "you". I despise time for not letting me have just a few more years to really get to know you and remember you. If I could go back, I'd write down every little thing about you. I'd write about your bright blue eyes, and your laughter that lit up any room. I'd write about your favorite pair of shoes and your favorite type of pie, I remember you told me once it was blueberry, and I hold on to that like it's everything.
I try to tell myself that you're still you. That your heart remembers me, even if your eyes don't. But it still hurts. It hurts so bad to know you’re dying and while it's happening you think you're alone. You're unaware that there's a whole family of people at home that love you and cry for you.
When your daughter, my grandmother, facetimes you, she always cries after she hangs up. It makes me wonder how or why she still calls. You don't really say anything to her. She'll ask you questions and you'll just stare at the screen and smile at her. Then you'll occasionally ask the nurses in your room who she is, or where the music is coming from, when there's no music playing at all.
I'm still just a kid. I understand grief, and I understand loss, but I don't understand these things.
I want to be able to understand why people are kept alive even after their bodies have fully succumbed to disease.
It may be cruel to not want to see you anymore but to me it's crueler to watch you suffer.
In my mind I like to pretend that the moment you forgot me was the moment you passed, and that you're in heaven already. I think that ending sounds a lot more peaceful.
You would've loved to see me today. You would've loved to hear the songs I've written and seen how far I've come from when we last spoke.
I want you to watch me graduate, and you should be able to. My older brother graduates in a few days, and I wonder if he also thinks about how you won't be there. I wonder if he cries about you too.
You should've been able to experience these things. The world isn't fair and i'm sorry that you fell victim to its cruelty. I haven't seen your face in a long time, and even though sometimes I want to call you, I know it'd hurt more than it'd heal.
I love you GG, I love you so much. I wish you could've been a bigger part of my life, and in turn I wish I could've been a bigger part of yours.
I regret wiping your kisses off of my cheek when I was little. I regret not listening to you ramble about silly things on the couch. I regret taking every little moment for granted, because now I've realized I'll never get them back.
I hope that when you do pass away, you can find yourself again, and all the people who've remembered you in your place, when you started forgetting who you were. I hope you'll remember us too, and that you'll never forget us again. Because nobody deserves to be stripped away from the memories of the people they loved and who loved them.
I hope you can keep singing Frank Sinatra in heaven, and maybe even meet him.
And lastly,
I hope you'll watch me graduate, even if you aren't really there. I hope I'll be able to make you smile from the clouds, and that the sun will shine a little brighter that day, so I can be told that you're right there.
I miss you everyday.
And I'm sorry that I won't visit. I love you too much to see you this way, even if some people don't understand my way of dealing with this grief.
Even if your brain can't remember things anymore, I hope your heart will always hold onto the love it shared to the world when you were my loving and gentle GG.
I will always be with you, as you will be with me.