Page 38 of Speak from the Heart

For three days, I sit beside Nana.

“Speak from your heart,” Nana says, startling me from a wave of random memories about her and of Grace and me as children at her home during summers long since passed. Those were more innocent times I hadn’t thought about for quite a while.

“What, Nana?” Her voice is the clearest it’s been in days, but I don’t understand what she’s saying.

“Speak from your heart, Emily. Tell it like it is. How you feel. What you want. It’s the only way to live.”

I scoot the chair closer to her bed, taking up her cold, thin hand with mine. “Okay, Nana.” I don’t need to argue with her. She’s never been wrong in the advice she’s given. Her rules of etiquette shaped my life, though I’ve broken a few of them. One-night stands. Paid for dates to get out of them. Opening my own damn door when the man before me wasn’t a gentleman.

“Live now, Emily. Not in the past where you can’t change anything. Not for the future when you don’t know where it leads. Now is your life, sweetheart. Live it.”

Tears stream down my face once again, and I recall how my grandmother did just that. She lived her life. She fulfilled all her dreams with both family and career. True love and a work ethic. She believed in the greater good of people if they only treated one another with respect set forth through manners.

I need to be better, I decide as I hold her hand.

“I will, Nana. Live now. Got it,” I tease, while more tears flow over my cheeks and drip from my chin.

How though, Nana? How do I do it?

I thought I’d been living my best life by chasing a career and foregoing relationships, but none of it has gotten me anywhere.

“You didn’t want children?” Jess asked.

Yes, yes I did. I do. I want it all, only I’m no longer certain I’m on the right path to achieve it.

How did you do it, Nana? I wonder once again, only I’ll never get answers to my unasked questions. Nana passes on that third evening, dispensing her wisdom and holding my hand.