The Big 100

“How does it feel, Mrs Hopkins?” I blink and I’m snapped back to reality. Yanked out of the rabbit-hole of my thoughts that I’d allowed myself to tumble down. I look over to the young nurse standing to my right. “Sorry love,” I croak, “How do I feel about what?”

“It says here that your 100th birthday is in two days!” She beams at me. “How do you feel about it?” 

How do I feel? What a loaded question. On the inside I feel as though I should stand up and take a bow, titling my hat to the audience. The audience who isn’t here. If they were, they’d clap and cheer for me. “The Big 100! Congratulations, Rita!” They’d say. I don’t feel so big on the outside, rather, I feel minute. A tiny speck in the grand scheme of things, a cog in the works of life so small and replaceable, that if I were broken, nothing would change. And I am broken. Yet life goes on. I haven’t seen my daughter in almost three months. She’s a big corporate boss now and work is ‘like totally crazy right now’ so there’s no time to see me. I tell her I understand, but really I’m not sure that I do. It’s like everything is moving but I’m being left behind. 

Worse yet, I feel myself forgetting her. Often I lie awake at night, thinking about her, trying desperately to jog my memory. But everything is in black and white for me now. I think of her eyes, the eyes that once were a bright vibrant colour, are grey to me. I conjure up colours in my head, sometimes. A bright green maybe? Or perhaps an icy blue? Nothing seems right, it never quite fits her, so I am left feeling disheartened. Sometimes I dream of her. She is turned away from me, a dark hood over her head. I know that it’s her and I call her name. She turns around and her skin is a deep blue colour, her face completely blank. We stand, and although she has no eyes, I feel her stare go straight through me. Then she runs. She turns and she runs. I stay frozen to the spot as I watch her go. I wake soon after she’s gone. Then I sit in my dark room and sob silently into the handkerchief she embroidered for my 40th birthday. The stitches are wonky and if you look closely you can see the faint pencil line that my husband drew on for her. 

I do miss my husband most days. I find my heart aching when I remember that I’m turning 100 years old. Living for an entire century excited him to no end. He didn’t make it anywhere close. He was 65 when lung cancer finally got him. In his last days, he told me to stick life out to the end. With a chuckle, he reminded me that living to 100 would see me receiving a letter from the Queen. He was always such a patriot and even though I never cared for the Royal Family all that much, for him I watched the weddings and the christenings on TV. It’s almost bittersweet, knowing that if I manage to drag my limp, almost lifeless body through the next couple of days, I’ll get a letter from Queen Elizabeth herself. To others that might mean more, but for me, it’s merely a piece of paper with words on it. All things considered, it really ought to mean something to me, but I’m so tired now that I can’t imagine I’d be able to tell the difference between a handwritten letter from Her Royal Highness, or a crayon drawn picture of the beach from the grandson I never had.

Sometimes I resent my daughter for never giving me grandchildren. It was a dream of mine. My grandmother was a saint and ever since she passed, I was waiting for the chance to spoil my own grandchild. But the time never came. She was too interested in her career for children and now, at age 59, there is almost nothing she can do. And even if by a miracle, made possible by only God himself, she had a child now, what could I do? Reduced to this tiny room, the stark white walls surrounding me. This is no place to take a child. The tea parties and picnics I’d envisioned, the walks in the park, the naughty sweetshop visits against mummy’s wishes… they were all gone. Thrown into a black hole, together with the dreams I’d abandoned long ago, given up for the sake of practicality.

“Erm, Mrs Hopkins? Are you alright?” I feel an arm on my shoulder and I shake it off, instinctively. I glance over and the smiley nurse looks hurt. I had ignored her question. Feeling awful about upsetting this lovely woman, I turn my head to face her fully, and plaster a smile as large as I can muster, onto my face. “Why, I’m bloody excited!” I grin through my teeth, praying that she can’t tell how much pain I am feeling inside. She beams at me as she checks my vitals; “I am glad!” She walks towards the door, then stops. Turning around she says, “You’ll get a letter from the Queen, you know? How about that?” She chuckles and then leaves the room. “Yeah, how about that?,” I mutter to the empty room. I wonder if I’ll make it? I’m losing track of the days but all I know is, I’ve been on this planet long enough. What will two days and a note from the Queen do to ease my pain? I’d rather just die now. If I’m still around to hear the nurses sing Happy Birthday to me as they have done for the past six years, then it’s only for my husband. 

Six years can go by so fast in the real world but I’m not in the real world, I’m trapped in this room almost all hours of the day. It’s a terrifying limbo between life and death. It feels as though I’m in God’s waiting room and I see other people, who have been waiting far less time than I have, go in ahead of me. It isn’t fair. People often jokingly muse that the world ended in 2012 and we are living in Hell on Earth and I almost believe it. For me, this ward is purgatory. I am already dead and simply suffering mercilessly to pay for my sins. Some days I fear that I shall go mad if I haven’t already. It’s inconceivably dull in here. Often I’ll put on the television to distract myself but all that I ever see is old reruns of mundane family game shows.

It’s like my very own Groundhog Day. I wake up to the same nurses with the same pills and the same meals. The same stupid programmes and the same feeling of entrapment. I’m sure the people I interact with acknowledge that each day is a new one, but for me, it is all the same. The only change is that I wake up feeling worse than I did before. I worry that I am losing my mind, that is, if I haven’t already lost it. It could be that I’m so far gone that I didn’t even clock that I’d gone completely insane. They say the first sign of madness is talking to oneself and kept in this room to myself all day, its no wonder that’s all I can do. 

If I’m being completely honest with myself, the idea of turning 100 has so little significance to me at this point, that if the nurse hadn’t mentioned it earlier I would’ve just carried on with my day. But now I’m dwelling on the miserable state I have reached, wondering what it took to make me so morose. No one wants to be old, but each year is another milestone and we celebrate. Now I’m not sure why. It’s almost a ‘Congratulations! You didn’t die this year! But now, you’re one year closer to death!’ So you carry on living, but each day, inching closer and closer to the end. It’s morbid if you think about it deeply. I never did, until now.

Besides, it isn’t really living anymore, is it? I’m merely surviving, struggling through the days I have left. I hope it happens when I am asleep. Although come to think of it, a slow death wouldn’t be any more painful than my existence now. It would hurt for a bit, but then I’m at peace, with the ones I love. The ones who left me behind. I can’t wait to see them now. It can’t be much longer. 

I feel strangely tranquil about death. For many, it’s a paralysing fear that consumes them day in and day out. I suppose it used to be that way for me but not any more. I want to go. I’ve done all I can on this earth and I’m proud of it. It won’t make a difference if I hold on for a few days or if I go now. I haven’t seen the light yet, I wonder if it’s even a real thing that a dying person even sees. If I do get the chance, I can confidently say that I will take calm and collected strides towards it. I won’t try to fight it, what good would that even do?

I have two days until I turn 100 and to be quite honest, I couldn’t care less. If I can stay alive that long then, by all means, bring out the streamers and the cake, make a whole song and dance of it because guaranteed I’ll be gone by the next morning. I’d rather a celebration of my death than of my life; I’ll be far happier to go than I will be to stay. There’s nothing here for me anymore. I miss my husband, my parents, my grandmother and all my friends. All I ask is that I’m buried with my husband and that they play ‘Candle in the Wind’ at my funeral. It was his favourite song. 

It feels as though I have thought all I have left to think. I’m sick of waiting for death now. It’s tiresome. I feel the same anticipation I once felt waiting the night before my first school trip when I was a child. Unable to think about anything but what was coming next, staring at my ceiling at 3 am. Not much has changed. At least I hope not. I’d like to think I’m still the same girl I was back then, but the only people I can ask about that aren’t here anymore. Its okay though, I can ask them soon.