It takes about 3 minutes to get an x-ray of my chest. I can feel the wavelengths highlighting something deadly, at least that’s what it always feels like. It takes me a month to get the test after it’s ordered by the doctor. Everyone says it's better to know now than to allow things to get worse. Still, if I am dying, I’d rather not know. I’d like to go in my sleep— suddenly, and without warning. I'd rather skip the slow days of creeping shadow, of serene instrumentals and the voices of my loved ones morphing into a whispering chorus around me. And then the pricks of needles, squeeze of blood pressure monitors, and the slosh of intermittent morphine like tasteless mouthwash and gone.

My chest aches every time I breathe, punctuation to every position the tech ushers me into. “Tilt Your head up, move Your chin into the padding, a little to the left”. Everything is white except for the computer screen. It’s too cold, and I'm naked under a smock. The thud in my chest morphs into a quick drum every time I am directed, and the machines rising whine fades to nothing and starts again. I feel too short next to the machine, small and unimportant— so much so that an unthinking thing can decide my fate. It only takes a minute to discover something horrible in black and white. When it’s over I stand there a little too long afterward. I flit my eyes back and forth from the computer screen to the tech’s face. “All done honey”, she tells me, “The results will be ready in 48 hours'', She tilts the computer screen towards herself and smiles at me. She doesn’t tell me if it looks strange. I think that the X-ray tech is too nice, the kind of nice people become when someone is fragile, dying or about to receive bad news. She doesn’t tell me I have congestive heart failure like You or Daddy. She doesn't say I’ll die Young or that I have cancer or that my ribcage is collapsing while I stand there looking at her glossy-eyed.

Maybe this pain in my chest is a precursor to a broken heart. My chest aching until something in me finally shatters. Aunt Rita died that way. A few days after she buried her husband, she was buried too, the church choir she used to sing in, standing behind her casket like a holy brigade. Will I die a week after You? Will this kill me? Granny, sometimes I already feel dead. The day after Your funeral I sat in bed awake, breathing too hard and scared I’d see You in the shadows of my room or that the throb in my chest would kill me in my sleep. While night turned to morning in front of my puffy eyes, did I pass the threshold? Gone without even knowing. Did I get my wish? My heart, breaking and then shattering and I am gone before I even notice in a purgatory where I continue to grieve for You day after day. It feels like it. It feels like it. It feels like it. I don’t know if I believe in Hell or karma or anything except that there is someone, and that someone was You. But that would be like my God has died— what is left after that? I know that You were 90 and lucky, that maybe You lived longer because You were a good person despite Your soul food diet and Your tobacco chewing; that Your death is not karma nor Hell nor my God abandoning me. I know that it is just old age, another body that grew tired. I have always hoped for the impossible. It hurts to hope. It hurts to watch a prayer fold in on itself. To remember the 7-year-old me kneeling next to Your head at midnight, silently praying over You. Is God or the Devil or karma or the Universe is laughing at me? Grandma, are You laughing at me?

I know You’d side-eye me like You did when I was little, and I said, “You can’t ever die.” Your mouth would slant into something a little mean and You’d say, “You so funny Pookie, who wants to live forever? People don’t live forever, and You won’t either.”

●●●

I have been bracing myself for You to die since I was around 7 years old. The world would turn upside down and empty itself, shake itself free of Your sunshine. Spill it into the darkness of space.

I used to watch The Nanny late into the night, trying to ignore the roaches that came out as the house darkened and went silent. You were irked by my love for midnight, my small restless body. I liked to shake my feet, curl and uncurl my toes, jolt with every laugh. I was like a small dog, circling my side of the bed until I found comfort. Sometimes, instead of my mindless fidgeting I would scratch at the pale undersides of my feet. The scraping sound would grow louder with the tv, the skin on my feet turning bright pink and splotchy. It was the eczema, which has become a consistent night-time tick of mine. Some nights You would wake up and say,

“Now Pookie, what in the hell is You doin?”

At that point, the tears would already be spilling, my laughs sinking under the weight of the unrelenting itch. Sometimes I’d pray under my breath, look at the white popcorn ceiling and open my mouth wide while I raked at my skin. When You awoke It felt like being saved. I would scratch harder on some nights, move around a bit more in hopes of shaking You awake. It hurt less when someone was hurting with me. When You saw what I was doing Your face would soften, You would say

“Oh babay, You itchen again? You gone scratch holes in yo feet.”

You would waddle slowly to the bathroom, the cobalt blue floral muumuu swishing around Your legs, Your permed auburn curls flattened by the pillows. You would fill that rectangular pink bucket that the hospital gives to new mothers with icy water, along with a towel, and some Gold Bonds powder. The towel would be dunked in the bucket, folded twice and settled atop my burning feet.

“I wonder why You itch so— there must be something wrong, it’s like there’s something under Your skin, in Your blood” it bothered You, You felt bad.

It bothered You so much that the next day You would start to look through those mail-order catalogs. The catalogs featured everything from fuzzy slippers to miracle cures, to Belgian chocolates. You would come across multiple things, pine soap, magnetic graphite bracelets for healing, a detox drink and order them the same day. I remember crying while the towels laid on my feet, partly because of the burning left behind by my own nails, the cool sting, but also because You were there. This had to be milked for what it was. You held my feet through the cold of the towels. Your eyes scanning over me. The way You’d spend the hours worrying. I always wanted more from You, and I always got it. You weren’t like my parents, I didn’t have to beg You for this.

On many of the nights we shared like this, I would be soothed enough to fall asleep. Sometimes I would keep watching TV. Once You had fallen to sleep, I'd turn to You glossy-eyed. I would squeeze my small hands together, hover above Your still body. I prayed that You would make it to 100 years old, when I would be 30 years old. That would have to be enough time to have kids, get married, to squeeze all my important moments into a time where we could share them. I made a habit of scanning Your face or staring at Your chest to see the rise and fall. Sometimes I would pause the TV periodically to hear that You were still breathing. I’d think about the absence, and how it felt to rest my head against your breast and how it would feel to never do it again.

The idea of You gone someplace that I couldn’t comprehend filled my chest and became a pit in my throat every time I watched You walk to the bathroom, muumuu swishing or the stillness of Your face when You slept.

●●●

I don’t remember why. I just remember how angry You were. It was not uncommon for me to irritate You, (for You to tell me I have an attitude, that I'm just like my daddy, and then call me a sweet girl an hour later). I can admit I was not much different from my father in that way. Hurt and sadness spinning into anger, into an attitude that caught fire easily. Like a piece of notebook paper that I would light on the stove just to see what would happen, the flame rushing too fast, disintegrating until suddenly my fingertips are being licked. The sink becomes full of soggy black paper and ash while my heart beats and the air fills with burning. So fast I wonder why I did it. So fast I don't remember the flame coming from the stove, from my mouth, my slanted eyes. I don’t remember what I said, I just know that it was my mouth, maybe that look on my face You always talked about. You were so mad my stepdad walked in and told me to shut up, to go to my room. I didn't talk to You till mama came home from work. “What did You say? What did You say?” I don’t remember, I could ask her now, but I rather not. I just remember saying sorry, I remember how You were more hurt than angry. You gave me the same speech, how You raised me, how I talk to You like You’re nobody. How can I reach back in time and change the way You felt? I meant that I was angry and didn’t know why. That I was sorry I didn’t sit down at the edge of Your bed and watch tv with You anymore. I meant to say that I appreciated You in the way I appreciate mama, that I loved You so much, but I didn’t know how to.

●●●

Do You remember when You were tired of living? When You told mama “I’m ready”. All Your family was gone, the ache in Your body had grown deep and constant. Isn’t it strange how neither of us wanted to be here? The nurse asked if You were depressed, and You said no. The idea was unfathomable. Depression is for those who didn’t fight their way out of their mother’s violent wombs. For those who won’t send a rusty red brick careening into the stomach of a boy who tries to touch them. For those who can’t face their husbands in a black slip dress embroidered with gold and a heavy glass liquor bottle in one hand and swing. Depression is for those who don’t swing. You weren’t depressed, just tired. I guess I understand this, being so tired that You just want everything to end. Not to die, just to rest, a break of sorts. You pushed on for so long, and now I realize I am too Young to be tired, haven’t done enough swinging. That age is just a smolder, leaving you in embers, your glow so much dimmer than it used to be.

●●●

I only ever see it in the photos, the way Your smile became more and more teeth. You look so frail in Your Christmas sweater, You can’t even smile. We do not notice until You are truly dying. My aunts, my mom, and I all look at the Christmas photos I took. It makes my nose burn, eyes fill, shoulders stiffen just thinking of it. How did we not notice? You were so tired You could barely speak. I only remember hearing You say I love You, I think You may have said something about my hair or called my father fat or said hi to my boyfriend. Every time Mama walked by You placed Your hand on her swollen stomach and said “fat”. Maybe You said all of this or none of it, but I know You said You loved me. This was one of the last times You would say it.

A week later You would not be able to speak. I offered You a Belgian chocolate-covered cookie from the red tin that the hospital always sends You. You held it in Your mouth until the chocolate turned to syrup, and Mama scraped the cookie lovingly off Your tongue. We laughed about it in the kitchen, the way You were just trying to be nice in the same way You’d take Mama’s dinner and feed it to the dog when she wasn’t looking. Whenever I visit home, we still laugh about You, Your one-liners, Your advice, Your refusal to say anything quietly or with less than one curse word. We are always holding back tears with a smile or a laugh, we see You in everything. It is a hollow comfort. Even Your granddaughter, barely walking is so much like You. Nyla teeters around the house in circles, throwing toys and babbling in the room that used to be Yours. Such a backward miracle for the IVF to work in tandem with all of our prayers only for You to miss the birth by 11 days. Every time we look at her, we see bits of You. It hurts less to think that between the time of her birth and Your death that You met in passing. To think that maybe there’s nothing left of this world that You have not touched. That is nothing left that we can’t sense Your spirit in.

Arieon Whittsey is a creative from Illinois. They recently graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in Champaign.