I smiled. “I love her, too, and I…” I stopped before I broke down again. “I’m just glad she’s here. I’m thinking how I took Big for granted and I need her to know I love her.”
“She’s knows, sis,” Jazzy soothed.
I nodded, grabbing onto her words like I would if I were sinking in quicksand. They were life to me at this moment. I snatched her hand in mine. “I love you, Jazzy. I know I don’t say it often enough, but I love you.”
Jazzy sniffled. “I love you, too. And you’re right. We don’t say it enough.”
We sat down to wait to see Big. It was almost two a.m. before a nurse entered to say we could visit our grandmother. Jazzy had fallen asleep on my shoulder. I had stayed awake thinking of Big, my life, and Sean. I wiped my face and tapped Jazzy’s shoulder.
She shot awake. “How’s Big?”
“You can follow me. I’ll take you to her room,” the nurse said, leading the way out of the waiting room. She walked and talked, “I don’t want you to be alarmed when you see your grandmother. She’s hooked up to a lot of monitors so you’ll see lots of wires connected to her. She’s also swollen after surgery. But, she is very much okay.”
I nodded, though I didn’t fully understand why the nurse was talking that way. I didn’t know she was trying to prepare us for what we would see when we entered the room. All I knew was when the door swung open and I got my first sight of Big on the bed, I fell to my knees, almost taking Jazzy down with me.
That wasn’t my grandmother in there. Gone was the surety of her face. Even though she hadn’t been in the best of health before the heart event, her face had always been strong and determined-looking, even when she slept. All I could see was a shell, a shadow of the woman she used to be. Her features were slack. Passive. Like she was resting. If she hadn’t been my rock, I might have found this comforting.
I wanted my spicy, fussy Big back. But she wasn’t there.
I cried because I knew that no matter what the doctor had said, the truth was Big would never be the same. The Big I knew was gone. Forever.
