Runner-Up -- Senior Section

Elizabeth College

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I like that bear.

It wasn’t anything special. Brown, fluffy; a plaid-red bow laced around its neck. It sat on a shelf, untouched with a little bouquet of flowers. I looked up at dad from my chair, wondering if he had noticed it sitting there. He was busy fiddling with the bed remote, every movement tainted with the type of heaviness a tired father carries.

It had only been five minutes since arriving at Strathaven, but I already wanted to go home. The TV in Grandad’s room only aired the football, not the kind of entertainment twelve-year-old me was interested in, but I knew better than to ask when we were leaving. I didn’t want to hurt Grandad’s feelings, and, more importantly, I didn’t want Dad to think poorly of me for asking, so instead, I put my head down and began to count the spots in the vinyl.

“Stop playing with that, you sod,” Grandad murmured, swiping the remote from Dad with withered hands. Loose skin hung from his arms, the cancer literally eating him alive. Dad let out a heavy breath, one he had been holding since we parked. He slumped into the chair next to Grandad and kicked his legs up onto the bed railing.

“How are you settling in, you old bastard?” Dad queried. I remember looking up to his question as if he were asking me.

“Fine. I am completely unaffected!” I would have answered, because it was true. Grandad had been sick for months now, and I was feeling less like a grieving grandchild and more like Death himself, watching Grandad’s life slowly fade away while I tapped my foot impatiently.

My friends would always come to school with stories about their weekend spent with their grandparents, their bond proven by some new toy they were bought. They would tell me about how their Nan had taught them Black Jack, or how their new retirement home had seven bedrooms. Grandad didn’t play games with me, or live in a big fancy mansion, or spoil me with spontaneous gifts; he didn’t even remember my birthday. He was an old British man living in a unit out the back of Dad’s, with no money and a revoked licence.

“Just fine,” Grandad replied, closing his eyes and resting his head against the pillow. Dad watched his face with a blank expression, but I don’t try to read it. Instead, I look back up at the shelf to where the bear sat patiently, as if waiting for someone to take it, longing for a companion. I wanted to bring it home. To snuggle it and nurture it and love it forever.

I’d wished Grandad had felt the same about me.

Grandad’s Place

On the odd weekend I went to Dad’s, I find it hard to remember a time I’d wanted to visit Grandad. I read in an article once that although 65% of young children visit their grandparents every week, 37% claimed that the only reason they actually go is because their parents want them to.[1]

I had wanted to be a good granddaughter, one that visited regularly and spent time with her grandad, and by visiting him, even if not by choice, the guilt of not wanting to go seemed to temporarily disappear. I also felt like by not going, I was disappointing Dad, and what daughter wanted to disappoint her father?

Some nights, we would walk up to visit Grandad, only to watch a cab take off in the driveway.

“Pub!” he’d shout from the window, dirt and rocks spinning under the tyres. Dad would sigh, but we’d go in to his house anyway and use his Foxtel subscription while he was gone.

On the nights Grandad was home, he and Dad would sit at the bench and watch whatever sport was on at the time, both with a Cascade Draught in hand. Sometimes I’d sit with them, Grandad asking if I’m still in school and if I wanted a biscuit, to which I always answered yes, and that would be the extent of our exchange. Boredom would eventually consume me, and I’d relocate to the loveseat across the room. Grandad didn’t know much about me; he knew that I was young, and that eight years ago, I was younger. Dad would notice my monotony and suggest I turn on the tube TV, but all Grandad had under thick layers of dust and newspapers were my old Wiggles DVDs.

Grandad’s house was boring, I thought. I was bored, I thought. Never had I thought about the day that Grandad’s house would be empty, and I would be playing my wiggles DVDs just to be with him one more time.

Visiting Hours

This time, my sister was taking me to visit Grandad.

She had asked me earlier in the week asking if I wanted to go with her to see him at the nursing home, to which I hesitantly responded yes. I didn’t think she was asking simply for me to see him, but instead because she couldn’t stand the idea of sitting alone in Grandad’s room waiting for him to wake up, because what if he didn’t?

I thought about this as I watched a nurse check Grandad’s catheter, his frame floppy as she turned him on his side. His eyes met mine, and I felt… frightened; afraid of what impending death was doing to his body, to his soul. It was loosening his bones, turning his skin so translucent, I could almost see the life leaving his body through the bright blue veins etched across his face. I felt myself almost grow up in that moment, like I had finally realized Grandad was leaving soon, the same way he'd left for Strathaven, instead this time, he couldn’t come home.

I look back up to the shelf, noticing a note with the bear: “he needs lots of cuddles”.

“I like that bear,” I pointed to the shelf, filling the silence like the selfish child I was. Grandad moaned as he turned his head to look, every movement a greater effort than the last, and I will never forget the last words he ever muttered to his youngest Grandchild.

“Take it,” he croaked. “While you still can.”

Goodbye

I got in the car, Dad turning the key and checking his mirrors. Waiting for cars to leave the pick-up circle, he broke the silence.

“I don’t want you to visit Grandad anymore.” He pressed down the accelerator, “I don’t want you seeing him the way he is. It’s not good.” I remember adjusting the way I sat, making sure I seemed mature enough to receive such news. I wasn’t, but Dad had always delivered bad news bluntly, the same way he would later come to my room to tell me Grandad had died.

“Okay,” was the only word I managed before racing thoughts swallowed me whole. I think I told Grandad I loved him.

 I hope I told Grandad I loved him.

Awake

The Bush Inn had been operating in New Norfolk since 1815, making it the oldest pub in Australia.[2] Dad found it suitable that we host Grandad’s wake close to where he once lived, although it also made sense that it was held at a pub, arguably Grandad’s true home.

It wasn’t a sad event, not that it mattered to me. I hadn’t cried over Grandad since I’d learned that he became sick; not even when he died, but after the wake, after I’d arrived home and the house had gone to sleep, I slipped into my sheets and cried until both my pillows were sopping with mucus and tears.

Why only now am I realizing how much I love Grandad? And why do I miss him so much?

Grandad didn’t show me that he loved me, and truth be told, I will never know if he truly did. Only recently did I have a sort of awakening, that of course I was going to miss him; he was my Grandad. Ultimately, it didn’t matter whether he remembered my birthday, or what school I went to, I still loved him all the same. It was painful knowing that I’d never be able to show him what I’d realized, but as I got older, the heartache and mourning mellowed. Whenever I caught a glimpse of the bear collecting dust on my shelf, I remembered Grandad in a new light, one that hoped he knew I really did miss him.

It Comes with Age

“I like that bear!” My nephew gasped, touching the plaid-red bow laced around its neck.

“Take it,” I answered. “But make sure you give him lots of cuddles.”