by Blair Worthington

Created on: November 20, 2009

Saying goodbye was a process that started each day on the front doorstep. Each morning, I would ring the front doorbell and wait patiently for my grandmother to open the front door. It was in those few moments before the door would open that I would wonder what would be on the other side. Standing on that concrete step, I could hear the mourning doves making their cries from the safety of the rooftop. Their sounds were like lamenting pleas, a solitary cry to the world with nobody to fully understand their needs. It was a familiar sound that drew my attention each day as I would wait for the door to open. It was daybreak. And I was standing at the threshold.

He couldn't leave the house. He couldn't see the breaking light of dawn or even hear the birds, the mourning doves that seemed to mimic his silent pleas. Perhaps the doves were pleading on his behalf. On some mornings, his pleas were voiced. Such as when Blindness visited, and he plead for answers. His wife would rub thick salve in his eyes and tell him that he was okay. She promised a visit to the eye doctor. I knew better, for the doctors had told us that he may experience blindness due to the failure of his autonomic nervous system. It was difficult to see my 87 year old grandfather cry and beg to know what was going on. But that was what waited for me, on the other side of the threshold one morning.

I can't see! I'm blind! I'm blind! Oh God, I'm blind! he wailed. He was bedridden and frail, yet wanting and deserving of answers. Why am I blind?! he cried, anxious and alarmed.

I took my grandmother into the hallway and quietly asked her, Did you tell him what the doctor said about his eyes? referring to the appointment we had a month earlier when the inevitable blindness was discussed. My grandfather was too sick to attend the appointment, so his wife went in lieu of him attending. My husband and I attended in support of her, and the doctor shared what to expect in the coming weeks and months with his illness. We heard a lot of information from the doctor, which we assumed was going to be shared with the patient, my grandfather. But something clicked when my grandmother looked back at me the morning that Blindness visited. She had not shared any of that information with my grandfather. No. Not yet. I will tell him everything that he needs to know! she exclaimed harshly. And that was when I realized that his death, his remaining days on this Earth, and his hospice experience would be controlled by what

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