How do I know that this will ever be enough? I can’t picture myself settling. I want to meet new people, laugh under the dim lights of someone's first apartment, watch as the sunset casts rosy-orange lines on my hand through the shutters. I want to feel what I’ve never felt, everything that is possible to feel.

I want to run through a field, slippery from last night's dew and feel the frost on my cheeks against the warmth of my body. I want to watch the stars out my bedroom window, somewhere secluded, away from society, and sob and ache in all the right ways. I want to go to another country by myself, and struggle through that language barrier until it feels as if I have ascended, reached another plane of existence. I want to sit in the passenger seat of someone's car with my arm out the window and my hand on the aux, and savor those first tastes of freedom on my lips. 

Deep down, some part of me is terrified that this will never be enough.

Is it okay that I wish for my grandmother to die? 

Weekends as an elementary school student consisted of this: going home, packing my small blue suitcase to the brim with everything unnecessary, hopping in the car, and driving, with a beaming smile on my face, to my grandmother, Omie’s, condominium in Mays Chapel. I’d spend the night with her, having the time of my life. Every weekend.

The memories from that small condominium are the ones I will forever cherish. She bought me a red Razor scooter, which I’d ride down the small hallway in her cramped but homey apartment. I would then ride that scooter down the sidewalk, towards the asphalt path, and we'd park it next to the wood stairs while we walked to the nearby shopping center, buying Swedish Fish at Graul’s and stopping at Wild Birds Unlimited so she could talk to the owner, and I, with my animated six year old energy, could stick my hand in all the bird seed canisters, feel their various textures, and could ring all the windchimes. 

Back at her house, we used that birdseed to fill bird feeders that hung on her little tree. We sat outside in the evenings, watching the birds eat the seeds scattered on the sidewalk and the squirrels fight for their territory. We would eat chips called Quakes, an appetizer before dinner, and I would always sneak more from the bag. She’d teach me bird names while I'd laugh at the “silly squirrels,” and we’d talk about whatever my vivacious elementary school self was interested in.

In Omie’s small kitchen, we would make banana bread, jumble cookies, and applesauce. She would always drag a step stool over for me because my six-year-old height made it hard to be the certified mixer, official bowl cleaner, and a professional at eating all the leftover batter, simultaneously getting it all over my face. For lunch, we would have what I’d call “Dutch Cheese,” which was actually Gouda with the red wax still on, with Triscuits, apples and chunky peanut butter on Dutch ornate plates with blue designs on them. Before meals, we’d sing “The Lord is Good to Me,” a song that my entire family sings together when we have meals, even if Omie isn’t with us.

At night, she would let me watch Angelina Ballerina every weekend, give me a Klondike bar, and then prepare a bubble bath for me while reading Curious George, What Have You Done, Davy?, The Boy Who Held Back the Sea, and Spider. I loved playing with the bubbles, making bubble beards, and playing with bath toys, something I didn’t do at home. She’d then tuck me in and I’d fall asleep peacefully, with unexplainable joy, and worries absent.

At five in the morning, I would wake up and crawl into her bed. She would trace letters on my back and have me guess them, telling me stories about princesses named Caroline and her childhood in Holland. She let me watch Cartoon Network in the morning while she made breakfast: French toast sticks with sausage.

I would always dread leaving her condo, wanting to stay forever with Omie, loving all the special aspects of being at my grandmother’s. Feeling special, loved, and protected by these weekly traditions that nourished our relationship was the highlight of my week. Even now, the sentiment is the same: craving those sleepovers with the walks to the shopping center, making banana bread, eating Quakes on the patio, bubble baths while she reads Curious George. But, the reality is not the same.

Multiple times a week, my dad and I drive to Pickersgill Retirement Community, sign in at the front desk, and say hi to the staff, who are able to have more conversation than Omie. We walk to the fourth floor, to their highest level of care, to the hallway where call bells blare for minutes on end, to the hallway where most residents will end up living for the rest of their lives. Omie sits there, in the sea of wheelchairs, watching whatever nonsense they have on TV. The joy I would always have when going to visit my grandmother has since diminished, and I feel so much guilt for that. How in the world could I dread visiting my Omie, someone who is my family, someone who gave me so much joy every weekend of my elementary school life?

I don’t like visiting Omie anymore. The loving Omie who wouldn’t do harm to a bug, who would take a trash grabber stick on our walks to the shopping center, who taught me so much about kindness towards others has been overtaken by the aggression that comes with dementia; she’s become a difficult resident, someone who kicks, punches, and verbally abuses the nurses. She had broken seven bones in three years, due to her stubborn nature to get up on her own, but recently, she barely moves. Everything hurts. Talking to her is like speaking to a wall, and it hurts comparing a human to an inanimate object like that, but that’s reality. She is unable to have a conversation with us, and the little conversation she utters makes no sense. She can’t explain what she wants or needs and gets the past and present mixed up, but in moments of clarity, she’ll despairingly call out to God, asking for death. I attempt to tell her about my life, but a one-sided conversation is difficult, and I don’t know what to say. Lately our visits consist of us feeding her meals, because without assistance, she won’t eat at all. I keep visiting though, knowing the smile she’d give when seeing my dad and me is still there, but her body is too tired to let her show it.

Silence sometimes prevails over our emotions on the way home from visiting Omie. It encapsulates all the words that simmer under the surface, all the brokenness we yearn to fix. Other times, we face the truth upfront: she is dying. Seeing her this way brings an inexplicable heaviness, where I want the Omie from my childhood, I want her to get better, I don’t want to let go of the hope that somehow, miraculously, she will get better, that we will make banana bread again, walk to Graul’s together, have another conversation, but deep inside, I know she is gone.

“I don’t want to live a long life,” Dad will say in the car on the way home. What I used to yell at him for saying, what I used to misunderstand, actually makes sense after watching Omie suffer. His wish for an early death is not a desire for the end of his life, but an escape from the suffering that comes from living a long life. It derives from our wish to not see Omie suffer, our inability to do nothing but visit every day and tell her about the world outside her body that is trapping her in pain.

This is why it’s good that humans don’t have magic wands to make decisions or genies to grant wishes: the most difficult decisions will always be ambivalent and one may never find solace in what happened if they provoke action. Regardless, when it is natural, there is still guilt in both circumstances. Guilt swallows someone who wishes for the death of another, because how could you wish for someone to die, especially someone you love? But guilt consumes someone who wishes for them to stay, because they are struggling, and they don’t want them to die, and they feel selfish for wishing someone to stay despite their pain. It’s impossible to choose: knowing the person who has been a light for you is not in pain anymore, but accepting that the possibility for new memories is gone, that some of those moments were the last and that you will no longer have them, or holding on, praying that maybe they'll get better, but knowing they are in despair.

These are a few undeniable truths: I love my grandmother, I will always love her, but she is dying, slowly and painfully. True love towards someone means you wish the best for them, despite the pain it might bring you. I know the best for Omie is Heaven. Coming to terms with this seems impossible, but I know it’s true. I yearn to start focusing Omie’s memory on our weekend sleepovers, through banana bread recipes, through bags of Swedish Fish, through bird seed feeders hanging on trees, rather than her current pain. Seeing her struggle rips me apart. I want my grandmother to die. Physically letting go of her is hard, but the memories that will forever be etched in me are how she will live on. The love that she shared with me, my family, and everyone she encountered will persist. Omie’s physicality may be temporary and fleeting, but her disposition, personality, and character are the life-changing aspects that will permanently leave a positive mark on the world. Giving up the possibility of new memories in exchange for knowing Omie is at peace is worth it, because, despite not being on earth, she will never leave me. After all, I still have her banana bread recipe.

The month

(ish) 

of time between Thanksgiving

and December 25th

is 

undeniably

the best season.

Everyone is joyous

despite their

close-to-frostbitten noses

here in Vermont.

We embrace the season

in all its glory.

The music might be my favorite part, though

perhaps because

for the rest of the year

it is the forbidden fruit in our house.

Holiday music outside of that special season

is a big no-no.

So

when the Thanksgiving dinner is finished

and the dessert has been served

and the dishes have been washed

I rejoice in all of the songs

that I know by heart

even though I haven't heard them

in 11

(ish)

months.

& walk around soho with maxi skirts & matcha & annotate the bell jar in velvet blue ink on curling pages with garamond font & wear my hair long down my back & dark sunglasses pulled up on my head & bangle bracelets that slide up my forearm & paint my nails eggshell white and smile with blinding teeth & date a girl who likes pistachio perfume & braiding hair & date a boy who understands the smiths & charlotte brontë & only notice after concerts that my throat is raw from singing songs that sound like whoever i love & kiss that person until my lips don’t feel like mine & write poems about the lattice of light on my bedroom ceiling & write a novel with sticky fingers every summer & breathe into my friends’ laughing mouths glistening with shared lipstick or lip gloss or sauce from dinner & only buy brandy melville if it’s thrifted so i can seem ethical even though i’m a consumer & an involuntary capitalist & nothing i pretend to be - but i’ll only say that at night when i let conversations turn philosophical as the sky turns to satin & lace & wake up with the warm night pressing against my eyelids & fall asleep to sirens that at first sound like the high wail of someone out late & running to catch up with friends & feeling sweat soaked & impenetrable.

my family has claimed thanksgiving.

it's our holiday, you know,

the one we do the best,

and so it must be ours. we're joking,

mostly, but it's true we do thanksgiving very well

probably overdo but it's better

to have too much turkey than too little, right?

better for my dad to cook

for his favorite holiday and me to follow a recipe

to bake dessert (so as to avoid too much of a mess),

better to have the people you love around your table,

eating your food, than ones that speak stiffly

through their teeth & don't share your sense of humor,

cause we've made thanksgiving into Jokesgiving

with a capital J. on Jokesgiving,

(which is in fact thanksgiving but sillier, and isn't it better that way?)

we do a Joke as a family: last year was wearable shark blankets

that were as hilarious as they were hard to walk in,

this year matching blue crewnecks

printed with a line from a dumb movie my dad made us watch

that we quote so often it's both lost all meaning

and gained some new ones,

like a holiday called thanksgiving that we've declared for our own.

in my heart, hope is a quiet thing
a pulse beneath rubble
soft as breath against marble dust.

it doesn't sing
it lingers.
it waits in the cracks where sunlight pools
on mornings the mist forgets to rise.

here, ambition is worn thin
by repetition and grief.
but still they cling to the air
threads of gold stubborn enough
to weave themselves into tomorrow.

and though the city walks with ghosts
though its rivers remember every sorrow
hope keeps planting itself
in the places no one thinks to look:
a child’s laughter skipping over stone,
a lantern lit for no reason at all,
a name spoken gently
when the night is cold.

in my heart, hope is not a gift.
it is a choice—
the trembling decision
to lift one’s gaze
toward whatever light remains,
and believe
that even a wounded world
can turn its face
to dawn.

Today, I watched boys climbing a log stuck vertically in the sand

And girls kicking at leaves just for the fun of it,

And oh, when did our youth slip through the backdoor unnoticed,

As smoothly as spring transitions to summer, as the hour hand moves positions on the clock.

Youth danced in the backyard as we dutifully did our homework,

Watched from the stars as we kept our heads down to the earth.

Youth pranced in the glistening of the sunlight across breaking waves,

As we swam to shore in search of something foreign, futuristic.

“I can’t wait to grow up”

But I should have waited longer than I did.

Why were we ever in such a rush to move from the everyday delights of childhood,

Of splashing in puddles in brightly colored boots,

To watching rain race down the window from inside, waiting for the downpour to pass,

Each second stretching on like eternity, each tick feeling like a letdown to our futures.

“Carpe Diem,” Keating urged, but why does it feel like it is too late?

mother! i cry, captive of the wind

carrying my voice for those to hear who

accept failure is not an option & instead pursue

the package of progress, the patch of promise

a battle cry to be heard, 

a minor                                                                                      A  C  E 

mother! she cries, captive to the wind

carrying her voice for those to hear who

rebuke hatred in the name of love & instead pursue

the prayer of peace, the prospect of potential

a soft melody to be heard, 

a minor                                                                                      A  C  E 

mother! he cries, captive of the wind

carrying his voice for those to hear who

watch injustive & instead pursue

the plot of protest, the path of power

a somber tune to be heard,

a minor                                                                                      A  C  E

mother! they cry, captive of the wind

carrying their voice for those to hear who

bear witness to tragedy & instead pursue 

the product of passion, the pain of perception

a shaky whistle to be heard,

a minor                                                                                      A  C  E 

mother! we cry, captive of the wind

carrying our voices for those to hear who

recognize evil as it is & instead pursue

the paranoia of persuasion, the pleasantry of politeness

a choir to be heard,

a major                                                                                       A  C# E