For Another Hour

The day is 24 hours long, yet none of them belong to me.

The right half of my body is too numb and heavy to move, my bladder loose and my lungs just barely breathing. Instead of a loving family by my bedside, I'm chained to a ventilator, a blood pressure monitor and a cardiac telemetry. 

All my children are too busy to deal with me. One works in Shanghai, another in Vancouver. My son calls once a year, a blatant attempt to ask if I’ve signed my will yet, and my youngest daughter is probably in some mahjong den, wasting her cards through the night. My eldest daughter, unable to afford a leave from work or a full-time nurse, sent her daughter from the city instead, a college girl 20 years old, who barely knew anything about cooking, cleaning or taking care of bitter old men dying from a stroke.

My granddaughter knocks twice before entering the room. She does this every hour, to change my diapers, to comb my last, stubborn tufts of hair, or to spoon lukewarm congee into my gaping mouth.

At first, her chores were a constant fumble. She burned the rice, lost my pills, nearly drowned me while helping me shower. I barked orders like an emperor with bedsores: “Not too much salt in the congee! Rub my back harder! No, not like that, use your knuckles, girl!” She would say nothing back, only bending her head so I wouldn’t see her welling tears.

But as the summer ripened, she learned just as fast. She figured out how to lift me without bruising my hips. She clipped my toenails without flinching. Her touch became more gentle, but everything is still painful. It’s hard to eat. It’s hard to poop. It’s hard to move. 

Today, she brings fresh flowers from the market in addition to the weekly groceries.

“Agong, look! I brought your favorite – yellow orchids.”

I grunt in response, lifting my left hand into a weak thumbs up.

As she reaches over to place the blooms by the window, she sweeps a sheet of black hair behind her ear, the sun outlining her golden. I look at her, brows furrowing. She has a nose tall like her ambitious mother’s, the slant of her smile like her greedy uncle’s, and the high cheekbones of her foolhardy aunt; but her soft, honey-brown eyes are all her own.

My eyes shift over to the adolescent blooms, the white and yellow petals still coated with a tinge of green. Autumn has come, I think. My granddaughter has been with me for a whole season now.

“Ceng ceng,” I rasp her childhood nickname, “When do you go back to school?”

My granddaughter doesn’t falter in her speech, but her hands, busy arranging flowers, still, “Don’t be silly, Agong. I’m not going back to school. Who else is going to take care of you?”

“My other, prettier, smarter granddaughter.” I respond, and she laughs. I laugh too, even though it hurts my chest.

For a moment, the room becomes very big and full of small things: the sun through the curtain, a single dust mote sparkling in the light, the faint hum of the refrigerator, the scent of the orchids floating from the window. There are many things I wish I could say, but they stay lodged in the cage of my chest.

I raise my left arm. 

Thank you for taking care of a lonely man, but I fear if you stay by my side, I will make you lonely. 

I twitch my fingers.

You are young, you should be with friends, in the city, at school. Every hour you spend with someone who smells like piss and ointment is an hour wasted.

I blink twice.

Don’t cry. Don’t worry about me anymore.

When she looks away, I pull. The ventilator splutters, and my granddaughter whips around. Her voice cuts through the room, cracking open in panic. She grabs my hand, pleading and calling me Gonggong, just as when she was small.

With my last ounce of strength, I curl my fingers around her palm. It’s small and soft, a light pulse beating through her warm skin. I smile, and with a final tear seeping down the edge of my cheek, I close my eyes.