Page 51 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

How had I been caught unawares?

Yet, he’d looked so healthy over the last two days! So, himself again.It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t happen this way.

And now he was gone.How did things keep shifting so quickly?I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t get myfooting. I was spinning uncontrollably, caught in a never-ending pirouette.

"Would you like to see him?" Nurse Shay asked, her hand light on my arm.

“They already had me identify him for the paperwork,” I whispered, voice barely audible.

“Would you like to see him again?” She repeated her words, with only the addition of ‘again’.

“I can’t see him again,” I whimpered, though that’s not what she meant. “He’s gone. Grandmother doesn’t know who I am anymore, and he’s gone.”

“Come on, honey. Look at him one more time before they take him.”

I nodded, unable to form words. She led me toward his bed, and she pulled back the sheet. He looked asleep, peaceful, but I knew better. Whatever essence that made Grandpa himself had vanished, leaving behind a shell that looked like him but wasn't. I mentally screamed at the body to prove me wrong, for the chest to rise and fall as he inhaled. But of course, it didn’t. No beating heart. No breathing lungs. No soul driving the physical shell now.

"Take a few minutes with him," Nurse Shay said quietly. “They’ll need you in the front offices next, to go over arrangements. He had a will, and his funeral expenses are already in a spending account. All you have to do is verify some details.”

Again, I nodded. When the kind nurse left, I sat on the edge of the bed and took Grandpa’s hand. His fingers didn’t automatically wrap around mine. I had to push them into place, and they felt foreign, wrong. He was cool, not yet gone fully cold. He’d always been such a warm person, exuding joy and sunlight. I thought it must be why he and Grandmother liked to sit close to windows, to recharge that heat.

“Can’t you hold my hand?” I choked out the question, tears slipping hotly down my cheeks now. “Just hold my hand, Grandpa.”

I sounded broken.

A child again.

Crying over San Francisco and leaving home, even though I wanted to be a ballerina more than anything else in the world.

“I don’t understand why you had to die without me here. Couldn’t you have waited? I was coming for lunch. I would have come for breakfast if you’d only told me your plans. I wanted to be with you when it happened. Why didn’t you let me be with you?”

No answer came, of course. Just the hum of the fan spinning above us, the soft beeps of machines, and the other sounds of Serenity House filtering into Grandpa’s room—soft voices, a television somewhere down the hall, the squeak of comfortable shoes slipping across polished tile.

I don't know how long I sat there, holding his hand, before two men arrived with a gurney. Nurse Shay was behind them.

"I'm sorry, Nelly," she said. "The men from the funeral home are here now and the nurse for this room needs to wrap up some things.”

Those things were destroying Grandpa’s unused medication, stripping down the room, and getting it ready for the next patient. Making it like...he’d never existed here.In a way, I was glad they’d take the memory of him from this space. I didn’t want to close my eyes and imagine his last moments in the sterile room with its beeping monitors. Regardless though, I knew the image of his body motionless was seared into my brain. Nothing would erase it.

I gently placed Grandpa’s hand down. I positioned it over his stomach, lifting his other to rest atop the one I’d held. I stood sluggishly, legs feeling wooden, and shuffled to the corner of theroom to make way for the workers. They were respectful and professional, but it still felt wrong. These strangers shouldn’t touch him. I didn’t want anyone to touch him. I held a fist against my chest as they gently rolled him onto his right side, then his left, working a black body bag into place beneath him. They zipped it closed, bundling my beloved Grandpa onto a gurney like a package to be delivered. I followed them partway down the hall before stopping, watching them disappear around a corner.

Robotically, I made my way to the front offices. I didn’t have to ask where to go, or who to talk to, because as soon as the receptionist Marissa spotted me, she hopped up and raced forward for a hug, then led me into one of the rooms. She sat me down, asked if I wanted a water, and then scurried out quickly when I said ‘yes’. A cool bottle was pushed into my hands moments later.

The next half hour was spent verifying Grandpa’s funeral plan with the facility’s afterlife coordinator. Grandpa had done everything in advance. The affair would be small, cost-effective. The obituary was written, and already sent to the local papers, only requiring a release date when the time came. Which, of course it had come now. There was nothing for me to do except show up to Elmhurst Funeral Services on the day, which Grandpa had outlined as three days post death—the minimum wait in Washington to ensure a person was truly deceased.

I nodded as the coordinator talked at me, eyes unable to focus on anything.

I tried hard to listen, but my ears were filled with a droning buzz that drowned everything else out. I was crushing the empty water bottle in my hands, the crinkling noise adding to the chaos in my head.

The bereavement counselor arrived at some point, but I was in such a daze, still processing very little. Even if Icouldhearand understand, my brain and body were so filled-to-bursting with disbelief and sadness that I couldn’t ingest anything more without exploding.

“Elmhurst will contact you tomorrow, Miss Shaw.” A pause. “Miss Shaw, did you hear me?”

Another pause.

“Can you grab her more water, Donald?”

Movement. A door whining open.