She felt her mum’s arms wrap round her, followed by her dad and her sisters, who had rushed in behind her. ‘He’s gone,’ Mum continued.
Louisa felt her body go limp, her legs unable to stay strong. She collapsed in a heap on the floor. ‘No, no, please, no, Mamma. He’s OK, I’ll go wake him up – he’ll be fine.’ Her body shook violently; tears gushed down her cheeks. She was screaming, and she didn’t know how to stop. ‘He can’t be gone, I need to speak to him.’ She felt her mum kneel beside her but couldn’t bring herself to uncurl from the fetal position in which she lay to look at her. She couldn’t control her tears; her jumper sleeves were wet through. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, I’m so sorry.’
Silence engulfed the room. Nothing could be heard except harsh intakes of breath and the muffled crying as tears flooded each face.
‘What are you saying sorry for, sweetheart? It’s OK,’ Mum whispered after a few minutes or more.
Her kind voice caused Louisa to inhale a painful breath. ‘I’m sorry for not being strong for you. I’m sorry.’ She buried her head in her mum’s shoulder.
‘Oh, sweetheart, it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s hard for us all,’ Mum replied, tears escaping her brave brown eyes. Louisa hugged her tight before opening her eyes to see Amanda and Sabrina with their heads tucked in against their dad’s shoulders. She loved her family – how they understood each other and how close they were.
‘We just saw him this morning, Dad. He was doing fine, he was happy and laughing,’ Sabrina stammered, barely audible. Louisa could hear her cries too.
‘I know, sweetheart, I know,’ Dad replied, sniffling. He gave Sabrina a kiss on the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her.
***
Amanda wanted to make a joke. She wanted to make everyone smile, to make everyone giggle the way Grandpa always did if someone was sad. But as she stood with her head on her dad’s shoulder, no jokes or funny comments were coming to her, just an overwhelming sense of grief. Her head was thumping, and her fists were clenched.
She wasn’t ready for this. She was ready to prepare the house for Christmas festivities, to make sure the kitchen was fully stocked with all the ingredients she and her grandpa would need for the chestnut pastries. She needed her grandpa to help her, to show her how it was done. She couldn’t make them as well as he did yet. She needed to watch him one more time, maybe even two or three to be the master chef that he was.
This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t time. She let out a cry and ran to the living room. Punching the cushion, she wanted to throw it across the room. She felt her blood pressure rising as her sobs got louder and her fists grew white from clenching them so tight. She looked around the room, the living room she had spent her entire life feeling content and safe in. The cosy room that had hosted afternoons of coffee and biscuits, while listening to Grandpa’s anecdotes.
She didn’t feel like herself. She wanted to run. She needed to escape from this bad dream. Twisting her head around manically, she searched for Grandpa’s smiling face. He would come in any minute and greet her, give her one of his big, comforting hugs and tell her everything was going to be OK. She stood staring at the door, panting, praying.
A few minutes passed before her sisters and Mum and Dad walked in. Her knees buckled, and she fell onto the couch, burying her head in a cushion. She could feel her chest rattling, her heart twisting and turning painfully, like it was trying to escape too, trying to get rid of the hurt that was just too much. Usually Amanda was the strong one – always there with a quick joke or sarcastic comment to keep things light and playful. Now that energy had vanished as tears stung her face.
Minutes passed by as her brain tried to compute all the words that her mum was saying to Sabrina, but her heart was having none of it. She felt utterly hopeless.
‘Girls, he was happy. He wasn’t in pain,’ Mum was saying. Amanda scrunched up her nose, closing her eyes tight. She couldn’t stand to hear her mum sobbing. ‘My wish was that he would go peacefully in his sleep when the time was right, and I got my wish. He went to lie in bed this evening and when Nanna went up she found him.’ The tears tumbled down her mum’s soft cheeks and Amanda’s heart wished it could take away her mum’s pain more than anything in the world.
‘That’s good, Mamma – you always looked after him so well. I’m glad he didn’t suffer,’ Amanda heard Louisa say. She could hear the pain in her baby sister’s voice and it killed her. Her mum had lost her father, Dad had lost his dear father-in-law, Nanna had lost her soulmate, and she and her sisters had lost one of the best friends they’d ever had. She cried into her cushion as Dad sat down next to her and rubbed her back.
***
‘Where’s Nanna?’ Sabrina asked, looking towards her dad, her face red and blotchy. She wanted to form a plan. She wanted to fix this, make it better. That’s how her brain worked. She couldn’t stand there and feel hopeless; she had to make sure everyone was OK. Yet, she felt glued to the spot. No plans were forming; no solution came to mind. What could she possibly do to fix this?
Her grandpa was gone, and she couldn’t bring him back. The whirlwind of emotions swirling around in her brain had destroyed her organized mind. Logistics had been thrown out the window. How could she bring him back? That’s the only plan she wanted to figure out.
‘She is sitting upstairs with him now. We wanted to give her a minute to pray by his side. And …’ Dad paused. ‘We wanted to tell you first and ask you if you wanted to see him. I’m sorry it’s not nice to have walked in here and found out like this but there didn’t exactly seem like a perfect moment or time. We wanted to give you the option before he was taken away.’
Sabrina didn’t want her grandpa to be taken away. Her breath caught at the thought. She wanted to see his smiling face and hear him talk about what he had learnt from the TV that day. ‘I don’t want him to go anywhere,’ she said, collapsing to the floor, her shoulders bouncing up and down as she sobbed uncontrollably. Mum reached over to her and embraced her, trying to ease the pain.
‘I know, honey, I know – you don’t have to see him if it’s too much. You keep hold of the memory of his smiling, cheeky face,’ Mum said, smoothing a hand over Sabrina’s hair.
‘I’d like to see him, if that’s OK?’ Louisa said. ‘But in a minute.’ Sabrina watched Louisa wrap her arms around herself, not knowing quite what to do or where to look. Her baby sister was brave. She wanted to see her grandpa herself, but she didn’t think she had it in her to see him in his current state.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Dad replied, taking her in his arms, unable to bear seeing his children look so distraught. ‘If you all decide you’d like to, we can go up together.’
***
Amanda couldn’t move. Even though she wanted to see her grandpa, she wasn’t sure she physically could. Her body felt weak; she felt sick to her stomach. What felt like hours passed by before, one by one, everyone stood up. Amanda watched them. No one was rushing her or forcing her to go, but in her heart she knew she wanted to see him and say goodbye.
It took all that she had within her to pull herself together and stand up. Her legs felt like lead. They were heavy and painful, causing her feet to shuffle across the carpet as she grabbed hold of Louisa’s hand. Silent tears were rolling down everyone’s cheeks as, hand in hand, they made their way to the stairs.
As the top of the landing came into sight, fear enveloped Amanda. Louisa gripped her hand tighter as they stepped back to let Mum and Dad go first. Amanda entered her grandparents’ room. Her eyes grew cloudy as tears prickled her eyelashes when she caught sight of Grandpa lying in his bed. He looked peaceful, like he was sleeping, all wrapped up in his blanket.
Sabrina sat