We planned
to mark her birthday –
and visit
her in her filing cabinet,
with its
gracious gardens,
dim
corridors of old-aged aromas
of faeces
and this morning’s food,
groans and
occasional cries from rooms.
This place
had been her home
since her
vision failed
four summers
past.
There was
nothing that grandma Jenkins didn’t see
despite her
blindness, sensing precisely
changes in
size and shape of family members,
alterations
in tone of voice and itemising these
with the wit
of wicked teasing
shifting the
focus from herself
onto others
to whom she had donated
genetic
material, across three generations.
When we bade
farewell,
her face –
half smile, half sad –
was a
picture of the reverie of age.
Outside the
littlest of our clan waved
goodbye,
through her window
a gesture
relayed to her by a carer:
she smiled and
returned the sign.
Weeks later
we returned
when the
plague was active
and the
filing cabinet was locked.
We could not
visit or touch
and were
confined outside.
She had the
virus and was teetering,
short of
breath and weak.
We mourned
among ourselves:
then the
littlest who had waved before
wanted to
wave again. This was arranged.
Soon to
depart for other worlds,
grandma
Jenkins was supported by a carer in a space suit.
A weak hand
appeared at the window
together
with a faint smile.
“That was my
second wave!” the little one exclaimed,
in triumph as
we drove home.
