by Sophia Kurdes, 15
My grandmother is old.
And nearly deaf.
And almost blind.
And her legs no longer work like they used to.
Her personality has deteriorated
faster than her frail body.
When I was younger,
I did not care about these things.
Not because I wasn’t aware of what was happening to her,
but because of how she was somehow sweeter back then.
Sweeter than sugar as a matter of fact.
Those were the days that she could keep up.
The days we would walk to the park
and play all day
and eat ice cream till our heads hurt.
Unfortunately,
that is no longer the case.
Time has been cruel to my grandmother in countless ways.
It’s not just her body that has been disfigured,
it is also her mind.
When she started her downward spiral,
she would panic,
saying there were demons talking to her.
and threatening her with frightening words
But of course,
her monster wasn’t a literal demon,
it was that tumor.
The tumor in her ear that confused her.
We could calm her down at times.
She would listen to us back then.
But not anymore.
All she does now is scream at us—
always thinking we hid the TV remote
or threw out her stuff
to get to her
like backstabbing maggots, crawling through her skin and sucking out her
life.
And then,
when we turn down the volume of the TV
she’ll whine and complain,
saying things about how we hate her and want her gone.
I can’t tolerate it.
Not in the slightest.
Sometimes I have to leave the room before I
break down and say something that would forever
haunt me.
But the man who gets that hurtful beratement the most
is my grandfather.
Abuelo.
He has the ability to leave.
He has that choice.
No one is holding him back,
in fact,
everyone would probably understand if he just decided to
quit one day
without a note or a card.
Except he doesn’t.
He stays.
She can yell
and demoralize him
and make him out to be this disgusting figure
and he’ll stay.
There must’ve been a time where they
felt something for each other,
but whatever it was,
it has now dried up—
like a drought in the savannah.
So why do we stay?
Why do we stay in these situations where
true love cannot be seen for
miles and miles ahead?
Why do we continue to fight
in the trenches of suffering
when we should have left so many years ago?
…
I pity him. I really do.
I care for Abuelo,
and I hope I can still care for my grandmother
the way he does.
Shrewsbury, NJ
Bridge Ink 