In The Bleak Midwinter

She is still looking at me under drooping lids.  Her head tilts back, and she breaths in little, audible breaths as she slips off to sleep.  The REM starts before her eyes are fully shut; her pupils dart around, then roll up to show the whites before the narrow slits finally close.  Her face flickers through its little grimaces, then relaxes for a moment before settling into a reflexive smile.  She looks so peaceful.  Just like Lucia.

But this is not my baby, it is my grandmother. 

She broke her hip in a fall the week before Thanksgiving, when I was heavy with my baby and my anticipation.  I have waited too many weeks to come see her, but I am here now, and aside from this one brief nap, she is alert and lucid.

The nurses warned us against the visit, fearing that a baby so young would contract one of the infectious diseases that was tearing through the ward, so Lucia is upstairs with Hub.  Elsie had a nice visit, brightening the ward as only a child can, then went upstairs to eat her lunch.  Grandmama is crushed that she might not get to see her newest great-granddaughter.  She doesn't say so, because she is fearful for the baby's well-being and was raised in a generation that protected its infants with quarantine, but her disappointment is clear.

Grandmama thanks me.  She tells me that she feels her days are short, but that she has nothing left unfinished.  All her loved ones have come to see her and she can let go now.  We both know that's a lie.  There is still one person left to visit.

Hub and I decide to risk it.  Nobody is coughing except for Grandmama, whose pneumonia is probably just a common cold gone rampant in an old, sick woman.  The halls are wide and doors are open.  We don't have to touch anything but the elevator button.  I wrap Lucia up tight in my carrier, hub holds Elsie's hand, and we smuggle the baby in. 

Grandmama bursts into tears at the sight of the baby.  The rest of us follow her lead.

I don't know if I'll see Grandmama again.  By her own reckoning, she'll be dead tomorrow, but who knows.  She has always been persistent, despite her wishes to the contrary.  I tell her how much I love her, and I do.  I feel the love strong and deep.  It feels like goodbye.

Before we leave, we take a picture together.  A picture that I won't share here. Grandmama would kill me, sharing a picture of her looking sick and old!  So I'll share a different picture instead.  A picture of when she was young (92), healthy, and smartly-dressed.  A picture of when she met her first great granddaughter and cried the same big tears of joy.