The only person I’ve ever lost in my life was my great grandmother. Lost is a complicated word though. You can’t lose something without having it to begin with. She was the first and only family member of mine to have passed away in my lifetime, but that’s all she was to me, someone I was related to.
I remember visiting her a few times every year. But, when we moved while I was in second or third grade, we started seeing her more often. She lived a few minutes away from us in an apartment complex on the third floor. I remember the elevator we rode in—its old, dusty smell still lingers. Me and my sister would fight over pressing the buttons on the way up and back down. One time I fixated on the fact that the buttons read “G,” “2,” “3,” and “4.” I asked my dad why it said “G” and not “1.” He made me feel like it was obvious and asked me to guess what it stood for, but I couldn’t think of anything. Finally he revealed that it stands for “ground.” I never understood why they would make it “G” instead of the number “1.”
Her one-bedroom apartment was only three doors down from the elevator. She had a few pictures of family on the fridge door and some more on a little table beside the TV. There weren’t many decorations, at least none that I can vividly remember, other than an old telephone I liked to look at but was too scared to touch. There was always an unfinished puzzle on the dining room table; she liked solving the 3000 piece ones that were nearly my height in length. When she was done, it would get to join the stack of finished puzzles leaning against the wall on the right. My grandmother and my parents would sit together on the couch while my sister and I sat on the little old-fashioned chairs in front of the glass door that led to the tiny balcony.
Every time we visited her she’d give me and my sister the same gift. She had several prescribed pills and when she finished them, she’d fill the empty bottles with a stack of quarters and give one to each of us. I thought it was a strange container to give to kids, but I didn’t mind, I liked getting the money. She only spoke Spanish and we only spoke English, so we were never really part of the conversations she had with our parents. Instead, we would lean over the backs of the chairs and count the number of cars that passed by, each of us searching for a different color. Whoever had the highest number by the time we left would win. This was pretty much the same routine we followed for a while, until she got worse.
I don’t know what she struggled with, whether it was just old age or something worse. She was over 90, so what could you expect? But she didn’t stay in a hospital; instead, she came to live with us. I would wake up to the smell of the coffee she’d make for herself every morning. She and I were usually the first two people to wake up on the weekends, though I never dared to go out and risk talking to her alone. Instead I’d stay in my room and keep to myself until the rest of my family woke up. On the weekdays when I had school, she was easy to avoid. In the afternoon she’d fall asleep on the couch and mumble in her sleep. I thought it was weird. She also needed help walking so sometimes I’d have to offer her my arm so she could balance her weight. She walked very slowly. It’s not that I didn’t love her or that the circumstances bothered me. It’s just that sometimes I felt like I was living with a stranger.
Then, while on vacation with my grandparents, my grandmother, my great-grandmother’s daughter, received the call and took us home. I cried for a few minutes, not much more than that though. I remember going to the wake and seeing the casket they closed so that the kids didn’t have to see. People would try to comfort me and my sister with phrases like “I know it must be hard” and “Are you ok?” The sad truth is that I was okay and it wasn’t very hard. Sure I was sad someone died, but I never felt close to that person anyways. That same day I left early to hangout with a friend and chose not to go to the funeral. I didn’t want to stand dressed in black surrounded by people who were as devastated as I should’ve been.
I didn’t care much when I was younger, but now, every time I look back, a hole in my chest throbs. Why can I only remember the puzzles and old phones in her house? Why are my most prominent memories the quarters and cars and those stupid elevator buttons? Why didn’t I ask her questions? The world was so different when she was young. I wish I knew about her life and her experiences. I should be able to look back on all the lessons she taught me and the good times we had. Instead, I think about the conversations I could’ve had if I only made an effort. I think about all that time I didn’t spend with her and the memories we didn’t make. I didn’t know her, but I never tried to know her. Time didn’t seem so fast then. I guess I didn’t really lose her, but sometimes I wish I did.
Angelina Berger is graduating senior who just finished her second year of creative writing. She enjoys reading books and writing poetry in her free time. “Could’ve, Should’ve, Didn’t” won first place in the personal narrative category of PPCHS’s 2023-24 Literary Fair and 3rd place at the 2023-24 Broward County Literary Fair. Her short story “Manifest” is also featured in this year’s issue of the atala.
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