He was mine once

“Can you keep a secret, petal?” he asks with ragged breath. 

“Of course. What is it, Grandad?” I tighten the grip on his hand. It’s frail. So frail I’m scared I might break him. With gargantuan effort, he turns his head towards the window, and as he lets out a shaky breath, his eyelids rest carefully over his exhausted eyes. His hand twitches into mine, but he doesn’t say anything. Is he asleep? Is he still with me? 

Thing is, I know. Deep inside, I feel it. This is the last time I’m going to see him, and I’m not ready. I know he’s tired. Of being trapped in his weak body. Of being a slave to the pain. Of being forced to witness the mind that was once so strong slowly slip away. 

I know he wants to go. He’s helpless. Worn out. Powerless. He’s dangling from the memories of a colourful life that’s now behind him, gliding his gripless nails over too smooth a surface. He’s held hostage by a dark light now, and while he’s not allowed to go yet, every minute he spends imprisoned in this bed is chipping away at the man he was. I’m selfish, and I don’t want him to go. But unless he’s released from the unforgiving chains of his declining illness, he’ll have no relief - no freedom. 

He opens his eyes like a child unlocking a secret doorway - with care and caution and expectancy and excitement. “They told me he had a new friend.”  

I want to ask. Who? Who, Grandad? Who are you talking about? But his hand trembles into mine, and I wait. I wait until he’s ready, his steady silence holding me captive. 

“But I wanted to see. To make sure. I… I had to see it for myself. How… how he looked at her. I had to see it.” His lips quiver and his voice is barely a whisper. Should he be talking right now? Should he be struggling like this? Should I call a nurse? 

But then his eyes blink with so much purpose and determination that he reminds me of a pirate lost at sea, pointing to promised land. So I follow his stare to the imposing elm tree outside the window. The tree that was there long before Grandad - long before this hospice. A safe that protects the intimate secrets of the men and women that came before us. Perhaps Grandad's been sharing his secrets with the elm tree too - outstretched silent twitters in the middle of long, pain-stricken nights. He’ll take them all with him. Years of stories, feelings, and people - etched forever in his soul and inaccessible to the rest of us, like the rings scarred in the hidden layers of the elm tree. 

“What did you have to see, Grandad?” The words escape my traitorous lips before I can stop them. I don’t want to rush him - this isn’t the time to be selfish.  

“Dancing,” he says with laboured breath after a minute. “Holding. Kissing.” His words scuffle out of his unsteady mouth as if they were tied to an invisible string, connected to the deepest part of him - a part that wants nothing more than to keep those unspeakable truths from spilling out. And when he blinks this time, timid tears well in his eyes. He turns to look at me, determined to overcome the battle with a body so stiff that it refuses to move, and his delicate hand clenches mine a little tighter, like this matters.

“He was mine once. He was beautiful - the kindest, most perfect man I’d ever met. He...” A single tear rolls down his cheek, and he swallows so hard that his pain shoots right through my chest. Who? Who was? What happened? But the questions my heart wants to scream can’t find their way to my voice. So I kiss his silky fingers and hold the look in his wounded eyes with the love he deserves. And I wait.  

“He did the only thing he could do. He took his new friend dancing and did what was expected of him. Of all of us. He danced with her. He held her. He kissed her… And then he married her.” A sudden sob shakes his body so violently that the vibrations hit me like a wave, and mournful tears fall on our joined hands. I see them then. The chains that have been strangling his heart, suffocating his soul, and stifling his body his whole life. Stopping him from being the man he wanted to be. Stopping him from being with the man he wanted to be.  

“What was his name, Grandad?” I choke out. 

“John. His name was John." And the words fall from his lips with a shy, sweet smile. “But you don’t need to cry for me, petal.” He looks down at my fingers clasping his and squeezes them with the strength of his heart, rather than with his failing muscles. “Grandma Rose and I were happy. We made it work. She was the best woman I could have wished for.”

There’s so much I want to ask. So much I want to know. They were married for forty-nine years before the cancer snatched Grandma from us, and Mum and I never got the chance to throw her the Golden anniversary party she’d been looking forward to with the trepidation of a child at Christmas. “Did you ever tell her? About John?”

“I didn’t have to, petal. She knew. Your Grandma always knew everything.” His smile is soft, and when his gentle gaze lifts towards my face again, his wise wrinkles let go of the secrets that the rings on the elm tree can’t share. “But promise me something, Megs.” 

My nod is so small and yet so certain that I know he believes I’ll do anything for him, even if my pledge is as silent as the life-long truths buried in his soul. “Promise me you’ll be yourself,” he continues. “Promise me you’ll be free - that you and your children will be whoever you want to be. Always. Because it’s the only way, petal. It’s the only way to live.” 

His eyes slowly close then. And as Grandad’s hand shivers into mine one last time, he releases his shackles, and his last wishes form an indestructible bond in my newly broken heart.