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Not even to say goodbye.
“The end of a life is equally as important as the beginning… maybe more so,” she whispered after hours of silence. Ben had tried to coax her into eating about two hours ago, but she’d refused to leave her grandfather’s side. Terrified that Gramps would slip away while she was gone.
Ben started at the sound of her voice and Lilah wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but didn’t shift her eyes from Gramps’s face to check.
“What?” His voice was even raspier than usual after so many hours of not being used.
“At the beginning of our lives we’re strangers to everyone, nobody knows who we’ll be or how much they’ll love or hate us. We’re shiny and new, and undiscovered. But at the end…” Her voice broke slightly, and she was aware of him staring at her fixedly, but couldn’t meet his eyes. It was too painful to look at the man from whom she needed comfort the most right now, but who felt like a complete stranger to her in this horribly empty moment. “At the end, we have people we love, and who love us. Not being able to say goodbye, is the worst kind of pain imaginable. I wish…”
She finally turned to him, the never-ending tears once again overflowing, as she finally acknowledged that she may never speak to her grandfather again. Never experience his comforting hugs, never hear his rumbling belly laughter, never again see the spark of love and pride in his eyes when looked at her.
“I wish he’d told us, Ben. I wish he’d allowed us the share this very important step of his journey with him. All of these months, I could have been spending time with him, collecting even more memories of him to add to my treasured collection. And I’m so angry with him for depriving us of that.”
She wiped at her face and nose with an already sodden tissue, only to have it gently removed from her grasp, and replaced with a fresh one.
Ben smoothed her disheveled hair from her damp face and stared into her eyes. Always so damned intense.
“Maybe he didn’t want you to have memories of him in pain and sick and weak from chemo or radiation, Lilah,” he told her quietly. “Maybe he wanted your memories of him to remain untainted by this disease. Maybe he considered it a gift to you.”
“I understand that, but death is a part of life, sometimes it comes like a thief in the night, as it did with your parents. It took them from you suddenly. Violently. Sometimes it’s slower, gentler. And yes, sometimes, that slowness isn’t gentle, it’s lingering and cruel… but with your parents there was no opportunity to undo hurts, make apologies, say final I love yous. With Gramps, there was. There were still opportunities to create new, happy memories despite the malevolently lurking specter of death. But this right now is as sudden and as brutal as an accident. Why would he do that to us? To you especially, after everything you’ve already been through?”
“He thought it was the right thing to do,” Ben whispered hoarsely, looking haunted and she reached over to cup his by-now bearded jaw in the palm of her hand. It was the first time she’d voluntarily touched him since that last night in the Maldives.
Her response was quiet and unequivocal. “It wasn’t. It’s cruel. But I love him and I do understand. Gramps needs to control everything. I know that. Yet even though I understand, I find it hard to forgive him for this and it hurts so much, Ben. So much. I don’t want to feel this way.”
He made a gruff, distressed sound in the back of his throat and gathered her into his arms as the dam finally broke and Lilah gave in to the torrent of tears that had been threatening since the doctor had first told her exactly what they were dealing with. She buried her face in his chest, allowing him to drag her over into his lap and hold her close, while she cried and cried.
When the storm finally abated, she lifted her head and stared at him through swollen eyes. He looked awful, his face was grey with exhaustion and strain, his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
“I ruined your shirt,” she said in a thick voice, and he gave her a grimace of a smile.
“It was pretty fucked up already. Wrinkled, travel and sweat stained, quite gross really… so your snot and tears probably left a clean spot on the fabric.”
She smiled at his weak attempt at levity and her eyes once again drifted over to Gramps.
“He’s a fighter. Maybe he’ll get through this,” she said, her voice small and lacking in conviction.
His arms tightened around her and he kissed the top of her head.
