While looking out of the window in my mom’s office, I saw paperwork on her desk—paperwork she requested from the hospital about my grandma’s death. Curiosity got the better of me and I looked through it. Seeing notes on her time of death, cause of death, the time we were called, comments on our arrival, charts, release forms, autopsy results all brought back some pretty bad memories. I remember that evening almost exactly. Soon after getting home from school, the phone rang. My mom looked concern. She told us we had to go; I knew something was wrong. Our neighbors were locked out of their house; they had asked to use our phone to call their mom. My mom just told them to come with us.
We got to the hospital not long after, entered through the emergency room entrance. My sister, the neighbors, and I were told by my mom to sit in the waiting room. I remember my mom sitting at a desk filling out some paperwork. A little while later, we were escorted to a private room. I don’t remember if this is when we were told what happened, because I remember me sitting in a chair behind the nurses’ station, and some man approaching me asking if I knew what happened. I nodded. And he began to console me. I muffled sobs.
Nevertheless, there was a private room in which I spent a good amount of time. Most of it by myself. I think that alone time was when everyone went to view her body. I didn’t want to, but was encouraged to. I refused. So they left without me. I paced around, sat down, skimmed through magazines, trying to take my mind off of it. At one point I called her house, so I could hear her voice. I cried upon doing so.
It seems like I was in that room forever. People eventally came back. I was once again encouraged to view her body, and agreed to do so. Her body was in a room down the hall; I don’t recall too any turns. I just remember walking. Maybe this explains why I absolutely loath going to funerals and cemetaries: Seeing her lifeless body numbed me. The breathing tube was still down her throat. There was no sheet covering her. She was just laying there. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
She had a heart attack on the bus while going home from work; her office was right across the street from the hospital. I never did understand why she couldn’t be recessitated. I mean, she was right there…