Withered

Sensitive Content: death scene.

My feet were on strike and my lower back filed a complaint. My bladder was fuller than the ED waiting room and one sneeze away from a code yellow. I ran to the staff bathroom, answered nature’s call, and changed out of my scrubs. I released my hair and fluffed my curls. My arm pits got a fresh swipe of deodorant and I dabbled a touch of pistachio scent on my pulse points. When I reentered the break room, I was greeted with a cat call.

“Well, well…” said Rain, eyeing me up and down in one of my church-friendly summer dresses.

I flashed a quick smile with my singular dimple cheek towards her. “It has pockets!” I twirled side to side with my hands tucked to demonstrate.

“So… it doesn’t look like you’re getting any sleep after the shift from hell…” she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Not yet,” I said, then delayed for a dramatic pause. “I have a breakfast date,” I winked, slipped my bag strap over my shoulders, and blew a kiss at her as I walked away.

***

The drive to West Meridian that hour wasn’t terrible. If my Abuelo didn’t live out here, I would never have a reason to travel out to suburbia anymore. Before the pandemic shut the world down, we met every weekend for a family meal my Abuelita hosted. It didn’t matter the age, their status in the household, or the professional title they held in society; none of the Quintanilla bloodline had the cojones to be absent at Sunday brunches. Not her six children. And most certainly, not her fourteen grandkids. Shortly after she died from the coronavirus, my grandfather suffered a massive stroke. That was the beginning of his deterioration with vascular dementia.

Everyone in the family took turns driving him to his neurology appointments and physical therapy sessions. Over the past few years, he made some progress from the brain clot episode. In recent months, he only required assistance from a home health agency for a few hours a day. Lately, I’d grown concerned because he was forgetting a little more. As his cognitive decline persisted on, I monitored closely to ensure his activities of daily living were not hindered. Being a nurse, I’ve witnessed the clinician side of dementia care, but nothing prepared me for the emotional toll of having a loved one diagnosed with it.

My mind wandered as I continued driving westward. I recalled our last trip to his favorite breakfast spot.

“What do I do with this?” he’d asked, turning the single creamer liquid over in his hand.

I paused mid-sip to watch the confusion on his face.

“You pull where it says shake well.” I reached across and tapped the red-coned shape where it had been printed.

His fingers fidgeted with the foil until he finally lifted it from the plastic and successfully pulled it back. I relaxed in my seat as he poured it triumphantly into the coffee mug. That was the third cup of coffee he’d had since arriving at the diner that morning.

With every refilled cup, he poured in another batch of creamer singles. And each time, we repeated the same dialogue. He had forgotten the steps to peel back the creamer foil, even though I’d demonstrated it earlier. It was as if our breakfast scene played on an infinite loop.

My childhood was filled with memories of us at the very same diner. And each mug refill memory was him showing me how to prepare his coffee for him. He wanted four creams and four sugars.

It was routine.

It was mundane.

It was predictable.

And now, his cognition had declined from the disease, and daily habits had been replaced with daily challenges.

No one in the family anticipated that it would soon become our new reality.

A world where he needed constant reminders.

A world where lessons remained on replay.

A world where every moment was a new experience.

I remember the times he’d mistaken me for my Abuelita. After failing horribly to convince him I was his granddaughter Luna, I gave in and played along with it. We would sit as he reminisced about their younger years, allowing me an exclusive vignette into the beautiful life they created together.

“Remember the day Maria was born?” he’d asked. “We were so young, we didn’t know what we were doing…but she turned out ok,” he’d chuckled and sipped his drink.

I simply rocked on the chair beside him on the porch—during our dates—and offered reassurance as he unlocked the mental archives. It was astounding how crisp the details were on his mind. I prayed to the Blessed Mother every day that those moments could last another few years.

That I could see him smiling from the church pew as I walked down the aisle.

That I could watch him cradle his first great-grandchild and whisper Mexican folklore.

That I could continue transporting back in time and experience life through my grandparents’ eyes.

During other not-so-wonderful days, he would cry and say, “Mi amor, I wish I gave you more. More love. More money.”

I would hold his hand while he sobbed and comforted him. “No, Humberto, you gave me exactly what I always prayed for. A beautiful family. A lifetime of memories.”

He allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable, despite the way traditional masculinity taught him to suppress his feelings. No matter how the visits started, we always ended on a positive note. I regret not having the emotional intelligence years back with creating more meaningful memories together, before the stroke quietly withered his memory away.

A few months ago, I began recording our visits. I felt videos were the best way to share his legacy to future generations. Today, I hoped to have him retell the story of when he was almost the bass player for Ritchie Valens. The family stories were cute, but his almost stardom as a musician was way more fun to hear about!

I finally pulled into the driveway of the little two-bedroom home. It was hard to believe it once housed a young immigrant couple with six kids. The brick exterior was now painted white. My eldest brother gave it a facelift while he was unemployed during the pandemic and had too much time on his hands. I would’ve preferred him to keep it OG red. But hey, nobody listens to the little sister they thought knew nothing about fixer-upper stuff. The right half had a screened porch, original from 1955. It protected the front entry from intruders like robbers and mosquitos.

Along the left side of the house grew a vine that filled the wall with lush greenery every Spring. It doubled as a home for all the little green and brown anole lizards nearby. I walked up the concrete path and made sure to skip over the same crack that had been threatening my mother’s back since childhood. In recent years, it spread more, and a patch of weeds had now flourished there.

I balanced the containers of food in one hand and unlocked the door with the other, turned the knob, and entered.

“Abuelo, I’m here!” I was never sure who he would recognize me as when I came to visit these days, so I went with a neutral greeting, and role played from there.

I sat the food down on the breakfast bar and called out again. “¿Abuelo?”

I turned back to close the front door and engaged the deadbolt. Recently, a series of break-ins were reported throughout West Meridian. Thieves were taking advantage of the uptick in senior citizens living in suburbia. In the news last week, an elderly man was battered and still in critical condition in the ICU. It took place at a neighborhood less than a mile from here.

Still met with silence, I walked towards the rooms to search for him. My right foot landed on a mushy spot in the hallway carpet. Strange, he must’ve spilled water or something here.

“¿Abuelo, dónde estás?” I asked where he was as I walked towards the bedroom door. I grabbed the handle and twisted, then swung it wide open.

Not here.

Panicked, I yelled for him, “¿Abuelo…?”

Where could he be?

I ran to the sliding glass door. He was not tending to the backyard garden Abuelita left behind.

Not there either.

I came back into the living room and realized that his fuzzy house slippers were missing. My eyes panned the room and saw the loafers he wore outdoors, still sitting by the front entrance.

He must still be here. But why isn’t he responding? My heart raced, driven by the panic building within.

I called for him again, “Humberto?”. My mind flashed back to the recent break-ins, and a tightness gripped my chest.

Then, it hit me. The bathroom!

I ran two doors over and felt the squish under my foot again. With my breath held tight in my throat, I turned the handle and pushed the door. An unmistakable sharp metallic scent permeated the air. Staring back at me was his motionless face and lifeless gaze.

A guttural roar escaped my body, “Noooooo!”

The pit of my stomach fell. A sensation of weakness took over me. I became paralyzed at the sight.

His arm hung over the bathtub; the only thing that kept him from fully submerging. His frail body lay limp inside a rusty hue tub of water.

Blood.

Another scream tore through the atmosphere as I snapped out the brief catatonic state. I leaped over to him. In my haste, I slipped and fell forward. Pain struck instantly as the bone in my forearm slammed against the edge of the tub. Pushing the agony aside, I reached in to lift him up. His neck arched back towards me with pupils completely dilated.

“No, no, no, no!” My heart thrashed wildly, threatening to explode in my chest.

My hands trembled as I placed two fingers on his carotid artery beneath his jawline.

No pulse.

“Fuck!”

Rage fueled me and I wrapped my arms under his arm pits to get him out of the water. Iron-tinged liquid splashed all around us as I fought to lift his flaccid body up and out. His tailbone slammed on the ground with a loud thud and his legs followed with a forceful drop. I carefully lowered his head on the tile floor. I pulled my hand back and it was caked with a crimson mosaic of dried and wet blood. I paused to take in my surroundings with more clarity. The chrome faucet was stained ruby red.

His head! He must’ve slipped and hit his head.

I reached in my dress pocket for my phone and dialed for help. I pressed the speaker button and sat it on the bathroom tile.

I situated myself at my Abuelo’s side. My fingers interlocked, the heel of my hand positioned between the nipples, and I started chest compressions.

A female voice spoke beside me, “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”