The Shine Journal
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Massive Disappointments
by
Joseph M. Gant
I could have come quickly, but I didn’t. Variety is the spice of life.She was a good woman, if such a label can be based in objectivity, and I took her oh so slowly.
The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. So many avenues for destruction— a slug through the skull, aneurism bursts, the wheel of a bus-driving-trainee flunky. Fragility is life’s most endearing feature. Without it, you wouldn’t need me, fear me, even worship me in softly spoken hush-toned prayers.
And in this case, I chose to take it slowly. Attachment, another endearing trait, made the stealing all the more entertaining. Seventy years old, and she never missed a day of mass. That was the family’s pride. That’s the good part, but I get ahead of
myself here. I took her husband first. Emphysema lungs of a one-time-smoker gave up beside an oxygen tank. That was easy for all of them to handle. I wish they knew that the cigarettes didn’t do it, but I suppose it was easier to justify. As though a box of tobacco has ever had more clout than me. But back to her--
myself here. I took her husband first. Emphysema lungs of a one-time-smoker gave up beside an oxygen tank. That was easy for all of them to handle. I wish they knew that the cigarettes didn’t do it, but I suppose it was easier to justify. As though a box of tobacco has ever had more clout than me. But back to her--I took it all, one piece at a time, but in the end I did take it all. Her family scrambled to find a doctor (a joke in my profession), to cure her fading sickness. They spent a small fortune on medications, caretakers, the uphill climb of futility’s toil. But they loved her, and they wanted to preserve the mother, grandmother, great-grandmother that never missed a day of mass.
When she got lost going to her Cathedral, I counted myself a poet. As her rosary grew stale, icons of those bastard saints filled her home in obscene droves— bought, pilfered, even hand-made by the ones who thought they were the victims. So many with a single shot— again I digress.
Seventy-one years old, and mass was just a forgotten shadow of her life. When she stopped praying the young ones picked up the chore. So many chores that got picked up: reminders of the children’s names, definitions of her fork recited from Webster’s pages. When double locks went on her doors, I nearly laughed at the irony—they were locking her in while I was setting her free. Prolonging the imprisonment was the game they counted score by. And while her sons and daughters slept from exhaustion on her living room chair, I paid fatherly visits in the nighttime’s quiet,caressing her hair and counting the evaporating reveries-- the ones she prayed for years to be rid of.
I did it slowly. I’ve been called a son of a bitch at times. But I share a mother with ‘better’ men. I do admit; I’m the bad son toying with your heartbeat scorecards until the game is called. My father’s not proud, but he made me what I am. He even taught me how to curse at referees with tact.
Seventy-two, and she’d yet to cry. She was dying and shed no tears for the passing. But there was plenty of grief to go around. Arguments overdetailed wills, catfights over the deed to the house, even shorting the nurse who wiped their grandmother’s ass. This is why I did it slowly. Mydear little project was a mirror reflecting all the reasons I do what I do. Even I need my justifications and reminders. Who doesn’t want to lovewhat they do?
Seventy-three. She forgot her name. Even I had a hard time laughing at that, but I did enjoy the ego displays of all those “hurt” by her condition. Screw them. Pardon my language, but they, you, are a rather disgusting bunch. With most of her painful memories harvested: like where to keep the bread, taxes, and her religious brand loyalty, I closed her eyes at last. The family was in a panic. They cried. They held long, pointless discourses on what it all meant. They recalled fond memories of a woman who never really lived those comic-strip days. And now I have to laugh, in fact I’ll lol as the fresh crops say. I laugh because they fail to see . . .
Grandma gets to go to Mass again.
Motivation: Anger over my in-law's Alzheimer's and death. Written from death's perspective.
Bio:Joseph M. Gant has a degree in Scientific Glassblowing, but writes instead for reasons of his own. His poetry has appeared in Gloom Cupboard, Lines Written w/ a Razor, The Chaffey Review, Ashé, and others online and in print. Joseph lives in the Philadelphia area where he works on his forthcoming collection of poetry and acts as Poetry Editor for Sex and Murder Magazine.
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