Come Home

Good NIght Mammal (ch 11)

Chapter Eleven


“Good Night Mammal”


         The waters were receded. School was welcomed. I had heard from a cusin that my grandmother Matilda was in the hospital. “They don't think that she will last the night.” Karen informs me with tears in her eyes.


         Mom had not seen her mother for over three years. They were so close, but the road to the house could not be passed by anything that was not four wheel drive or animal. How was she going to handle this when I had to tell her. I did not want to be the one to break such news to her.


         I loved my grandmother. She was a wonderful woman that was so much like my own mother.


         When I got home, I found Mom pouring water into a pot of beans that was cooking on the outside fire. Dad would clear a spot in the weeds. He built a fire pit from center blocks found around the house. Mom placed a rack from the unusable oven over the pit. It was a tasty way to cook.


         I was not sure of how to start the conversation. “Mom, I spoke to Karen today.”


         “Really? What did she have to say.”


         “Mammal is very sick. She is in the hospital.”


         “Is she bad?” Mom asked.


         “I am not sure how she is, but you need to find out.”


         Mom worries the night a way. When Dad came home, he could see the concern in her eyes. “What is wrong?” He asks with true emotion. She tells him the story of her mother being sick. Dad goes to our neighbor's house about three miles up the untranslatable road to call my mom's brother.


         “Jr. is everything all right?” Dad asks. Dad did love my mom's family. He was just a changed man since he moved in to the house.


         “Mom was having high sugar episodes then she went into a comma. She can talk now, but I am going back to the hospital right now.” Dad can hear tears in my uncle's voice. “They don't think that she will last the night.”


         Dad asks Uncle Jr. to stop by our school bus stop, and he will have Mom there so that she can go to be with Mammal.


         Mom knew it was not good when our dad told me to watch the others while he and Mom climbed into the boat. Mom had a small grocery bag with a change of clothes.


         At the hospital, Mom goes to relieve her sister at their mother's bed. She had been sitting holding Mammal's hand for the last three days.


         Carol hugs mom. “How are the kids?” She asks almost in tears herself.


         “They are doing fine.” Mom says as she sits on the foot of the hospital bed. “How is she doing?”


         “She wakes up sometimes. She smiles and tries to reassure us that she is OK. You know Mom she will be here when the world ends.” Aunt Carol. Kisses mom on the forehead. Sis I have to go take a shower. I haven't eaten in two days.”


         “ I am here. I will call if anything happens or the nurse needs something.”


         Mean while, we are in the house. Dad has gone to sleep. He doesn't notice that we are not sleep yet. Sis and Rose are wrestling in the dark floor. Less is sleeping. I was in my bed thinking about Mammal. We have not seen her in so long that I wondered if she knew that I loved her.


         “What was that?”Rose asked.


         “Sh!! Stop it, and be quiet!” she warns Sis.


         “Matilda, did you hear that?”


          I pretended not to have. I did  not want to hear what it was that I thought that I did. “There?” Rose whispered.


         “Go to bed.” I whisper back. They each climbed into bed without a fight.


         I did hear it. The voice. I heard it as if it were speaking into my own ear. I heard the voice of my grandmother telling me that she knew that we loved her. It had to be my imagination. She was in the hospital being cared for by our mother.


         It's three o' clock in the morning. Mom feels a tap on her head. “Judie,” it was Mammal. “You are as beautiful as you always were.” She smiles down to my mother. “My oldest, sometimes you were the smartest. I worry about you over there in that house with no utilities for you and the kids.”


         “I am OK Momma.” She tells grandmother.


         Grandmother's breathing gets shallow. The monitors in the room begin to sound. Grandma holds tight to my mom and pulls her in.”Promice that you will leave that house so I wont have to worry.”


         “I will”


         “Promise me, Jude!” Mammal said with a gasp.


         “I promise Momma.”


         The nurses pulls Mom away from her mother. One of them push her out of the room and shut the door. She runs to the nurses station and calls her sister. By the time that the rest of the family arrived, the doctor had delivered the bad news. Grandmother had died from a massive heart attack.


         When we saw Mom yelling across the river for Dad, we knew that it was for more than a boat ride home. Dad did brought her back to the house. Mom looked about twenty years older.


         She gave each of us a deep hug. “Grandma is gone to heaven right last night about three in the morning.” I start to cry. I realize that was when I heard her voice telling me that she knew that I loved her.





My words are ways to leave peices of myself behind for my children.

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