maybe when i'm done with endings, this can begin.
i went to see my grandma today at the hospital. i really wanted to go and i was irrated by how stupid the whole day was. when i finished babysitting, i got home and we all left, my mom, brother, and i. i was nervous the ride there because i don't think i've even been in a hospital more than a couple times when i was really really little. i guess i'm fortunate like that. when i was younger, i was really scared of hospitals because i thought there was a detector thing, like the ones in libraries that check whether you've stolen a book. i thought there were detectors at the entrances of hospitals that checked to see if you had cancer. i was always scared of cancer when i was little. i always thought i had a tumour somewhere, but i never wanted to know the truth because i was scared.
when we got there, i wished we had stopped to buy flowers, because she would've liked that. my grandma always has flowers everywhere at home. personally, i think flowers are kind of stupid. they just have no purpose, especially flowers like roses. they're just so common and typical. if i were ever to recieve flowers, i'd want them to be orchids, or exotic flowers that are far from ordinary.
whenever the elevator stopped, it slowed down and went up and down and made me naseous. i hate elevators like that. actually, i don't like elevators much at all. and then we walked around a bit trying to find the room and the wheelchairs in the hallways made me so nervous and sad. and the rooms were all open with tv's blaring and tired people sitting in chairs next to hospital beds. and the end of the hospital beds where you could make out legs hidden beneath yellow sheets. it was all just too much for me and i thought i would faint any second. i don't think i've ever fainted before, but it's like i knew it was coming.
and then we found the room and there was a lady laying in the first bed, and for a second, i thought it was my grandma, even though they looked nothing alike. i thought it was just my grandma, what she looked like after knee surgery. and the lady was all alone and she smiled and i guess she felt pretty uncomfortable. there was a sunny striped curtain dividing the two beds in the room, and my grandma's was the second. she had a lot of people already there, her friends, my dad. it's like she didn't need me to be there.
and just being in that room made me wish i'd never come at all. the sunny striped curtains, the flourescent light above her bed, the yellow syringe attached to her wrist, the painting of mountains and trees, the tv showing the hockey game that my dad was watching, the way my grandma closed her eyes, and when she opened them and they still seemed like they were closed. and how her hair was cut like a boy and her long nails were gone. and how i just pulled the zipper on my sweatshirt and fake smiled and fake frowned. and how my grandma's friend gave me chocolate and i wanted to hug her but i didn't.
my dad stood there talking to everyone about the woman behind the sunny curtain and how she was in a car accident, even though she could fully understand his words. and my brother played on his gameboy advance. and my mom awed at my dad's stories about the woman and she asked my grandma questions. and my grandma's friend asked my brother what he wanted to be when he was older. i found that extremely odd, considering my brother is only 10, doesn't understand Russian at all, which is the language she said it in, and has probably never said more than 15 words to her his entire life. this made me upset a little, as if my brother could have big aspirations at his age. but that makes me sound selfish. he said he wanted to be on a SWAT team. my dad laughed and my mom shrugged and my grandma's friends looked confused because they didn't understand.
after my grandma's friends left, i sat down on a chair, and i didn't know what to do. there was nothing i had to say to my grandma, and i didn't think she wanted me to talk to her, so i just sat there and looked out the window. and the view was like a postcard, but an ordinary one that they have at the cheap stores that cost only 15 cents. there was a forest and these houses with the same paint scheme, and the sky was a tired blue. and it looked so solid throughout the entire sky, like it was painted with the paint bucket feature on paint. and the only way you could tell it wasn't a postcard was the fact that there was a circuit of cars moving along the road just below the houses. i like to think i felt infinite then, but i think i'd just be kidding myself because i was just sad and quiet. i think once i feel infinite, i'll know it, it'll just come to me and i'll know.
then we left and while my parents talked to my grandma about vomitting, i sang a wiggle's song in my head, "Rock-A-Bye Bear." it was the only song i could think of and it didn't block out the conversation very much because i still knew. and then as we left through the door, i could hear her throwing up.
when we got there, i wished we had stopped to buy flowers, because she would've liked that. my grandma always has flowers everywhere at home. personally, i think flowers are kind of stupid. they just have no purpose, especially flowers like roses. they're just so common and typical. if i were ever to recieve flowers, i'd want them to be orchids, or exotic flowers that are far from ordinary.
whenever the elevator stopped, it slowed down and went up and down and made me naseous. i hate elevators like that. actually, i don't like elevators much at all. and then we walked around a bit trying to find the room and the wheelchairs in the hallways made me so nervous and sad. and the rooms were all open with tv's blaring and tired people sitting in chairs next to hospital beds. and the end of the hospital beds where you could make out legs hidden beneath yellow sheets. it was all just too much for me and i thought i would faint any second. i don't think i've ever fainted before, but it's like i knew it was coming.
and then we found the room and there was a lady laying in the first bed, and for a second, i thought it was my grandma, even though they looked nothing alike. i thought it was just my grandma, what she looked like after knee surgery. and the lady was all alone and she smiled and i guess she felt pretty uncomfortable. there was a sunny striped curtain dividing the two beds in the room, and my grandma's was the second. she had a lot of people already there, her friends, my dad. it's like she didn't need me to be there.
and just being in that room made me wish i'd never come at all. the sunny striped curtains, the flourescent light above her bed, the yellow syringe attached to her wrist, the painting of mountains and trees, the tv showing the hockey game that my dad was watching, the way my grandma closed her eyes, and when she opened them and they still seemed like they were closed. and how her hair was cut like a boy and her long nails were gone. and how i just pulled the zipper on my sweatshirt and fake smiled and fake frowned. and how my grandma's friend gave me chocolate and i wanted to hug her but i didn't.
my dad stood there talking to everyone about the woman behind the sunny curtain and how she was in a car accident, even though she could fully understand his words. and my brother played on his gameboy advance. and my mom awed at my dad's stories about the woman and she asked my grandma questions. and my grandma's friend asked my brother what he wanted to be when he was older. i found that extremely odd, considering my brother is only 10, doesn't understand Russian at all, which is the language she said it in, and has probably never said more than 15 words to her his entire life. this made me upset a little, as if my brother could have big aspirations at his age. but that makes me sound selfish. he said he wanted to be on a SWAT team. my dad laughed and my mom shrugged and my grandma's friends looked confused because they didn't understand.
after my grandma's friends left, i sat down on a chair, and i didn't know what to do. there was nothing i had to say to my grandma, and i didn't think she wanted me to talk to her, so i just sat there and looked out the window. and the view was like a postcard, but an ordinary one that they have at the cheap stores that cost only 15 cents. there was a forest and these houses with the same paint scheme, and the sky was a tired blue. and it looked so solid throughout the entire sky, like it was painted with the paint bucket feature on paint. and the only way you could tell it wasn't a postcard was the fact that there was a circuit of cars moving along the road just below the houses. i like to think i felt infinite then, but i think i'd just be kidding myself because i was just sad and quiet. i think once i feel infinite, i'll know it, it'll just come to me and i'll know.
then we left and while my parents talked to my grandma about vomitting, i sang a wiggle's song in my head, "Rock-A-Bye Bear." it was the only song i could think of and it didn't block out the conversation very much because i still knew. and then as we left through the door, i could hear her throwing up.