I’d take the Elodie hug, though, every day for the rest of my life.EighteenKatyWe passed the room that Shane was being treated in as Jarrod wheeled me through to Maude’s room. Thanks to Gloria’s efforts he had a severe concussion, a hairline fracture on his skull, and a broken coccyx, and was recovering in what looked like a nice room. For what he’d cost my family, he deserved to be dumped in a swamp.
Looking away from it, I focused on breathing as deeply as I could for what was about to happen.
After they’d returned from wherever Shane had been holding Gloria and Elodie yesterday, the doctor treating Maude had asked to meet with the family in my room. Apparently, after running tests on her, they weren’t sure if she was going to survive, but they’d be monitoring and assessing her constantly over the next twenty-four hours.
The good news was that she’d survived.
The terrible news was that after looking at her file, they’d found out she’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer three months previously. She also had an injury to her head, and even if they relieved the pressure inside her skull, it was unlikely she’d regain consciousness. It was too severe, and her body was too weak from the cancer.
Apparently, after she’d been feeling unwell for a while and had delayed going to the doctor thinking it was just a bad flu or old age catching up with her. After a barrage of test and scans, they’d discovered cancer in her lungs and that it had spread to her brain. It was so far gone that treatment would have been useless, so she’d told them she accepted it and was just going to live life to the max while she could.
Well, she couldn’t, not anymore.
The doctor who diagnosed her rang Dad last night and said he’d never met a braver and stronger woman in his thirty years of practice, and that’s what she would have wanted. We had the choice to agree to them drilling holes in her skull to release the pressure and they’d keep her on life support, or we could let her die with dignity - which again would have been what she’d have wanted. So they moved her out of ICU and into a private room where she could slip away when it was time.
Looking up from my lap, I saw that Bond, Canon and Reid were standing sentry in front of her door, and as soon as we got close enough they opened it for Jarrod to wheel me in.
I never wanted to say goodbye to her, and I sure as hell never wanted it to be like this. She was meant to be around forever because nothing could defeat the power and strength of Maude Crew. When the doctors had updated us two hours ago on her condition, all the medical information they’d relayed had fallen on deaf ears, apart from their opinion that it was almost time…
I was going to have to say goodbye to my best friend and my rock. Before that, though, the priest from the church she went to was giving my grandmother her Last Rites.
I’d had a choice – be here or stay away and come and say goodbye afterward. I’m not going to lie, I’d been leaning toward the latter, but then I’d asked myself ‘what would Maude do’ twenty minutes ago and I knew she wouldn’t have missed it. She’d have wanted to be there for the rest of the family and to say goodbye to me properly. I might not be religious, but she was, so this would mean something huge to her. I couldn’t let her down.
So here I was. Listening as she was given her Last Rites. Looking at the body of a woman who was too frail to look like Maude, but who was my larger-than-life grandmother no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise. I listened as she was given the final blessing, silent tears streaming down my cheeks.
I couldn’t let her go, I couldn’t even bring myself to say the word goodbye like everyone else was. One by one, they all went up and kissed her, whispering to her as they let her know she wasn’t alone.
I wanted to be strong and do it, too, but instead I sat there numbly staring at her face, only just aware of people moving about around the room.
But then the most beautiful sound filled the room, the unmistakable opening notes of Tears In Heaven coming from right next to me. Slowly, I looked to the side and saw Jarrod sitting on a chair beside me with his guitar, and then he started singing my grandmother’s favorite song. The guitar playing itself was flawless, but the way his deep voice carried the lyrics… there were no words for it.