Im twenty-five, and for the past two months, Ive been living with my grandmother. My aunther only living daughterpassed away quite suddenly two months ago. Up until then, Gran had lived with her, sharing not only a house but a quiet daily rhythm, their silences moving through the rooms like gentle draughts. I used to visit them often, but each of us had our separate lines to follow.
Then, overnight, everything shifted. Gran was left with only her own companya sudden emptiness humming through the hallways, echoing in her cups of tea and her slow footsteps.
I know the taste of loss; my own mother died when I was nineteen. Since then, absence has become a daily companion, ordinary as the ticking of the mantel clock in the front room. I never knew my fathertheres no tragedy there, nor unspoken secrethe simply wasnt part of the story. So when my aunt was gone, I understood with a strange clarity: now its just Gran and me.
In the days after the funeral, the world seemed tilted, like a painting hung askew. Gran didnt weep much, but grief showed itself in slighter ways. She moved as if through fog, left the hallway lights burning, sat down with a sigh and stared at the faded wallpaper, her gaze miles away. I told myself Id stay just a few days. Those days swelled into weeks, curling around me like ivy. One afternoon, as I folded my jumpers into a drawer, I knew that leaving was no longer anything I was planning to do.
Opinions, of course, began to sprout like weeds. People love to shape words out of other peoples lives. Some told me Id done the right thinghow could anyone leave an elderly woman, newly alone, in a creaking old house with only echoes for company? Others murmured that I was wasting my youththat twenty-five is made for travel, for pubs and late trains, for bright faces and falling blindingly in love, for living my life. They asked if I felt heavy, trapped, if I feared the echo of my own footsteps in eternity, forgotten and alone.
But it doesnt feel like that to me.
I work at my job, stash away a few pounds, keep the place tidy. I take Gran to her doctors, we cook together, and in the evenings we watch telly woven through with warm lamplight. I dont feel Im surrendering anything. I feel that I am making a choice. Theres no boyfriend at present, no thoughts of babies, or dreams of running off to another land where nothing smells like English rain and old stone. I choose presence, the steadiness of belonging, the chance to break the old cycle of abandonment.
Gran is all that remains of my closest kinI have no mother, no aunt, no father. I dont want Gran to slip into her last years thinking shes a burden or a shadow in my path. I dont want her quiet dinners alone, her nights spent counting heartbeats in the dark. I want her days to hold company and kindness.
Perhaps later, my life will revolve in another directionmaybe Ill travel, maybe Ill fall wildly in love, maybe Ill begin again, somewhere new and strange. But right now, this is my place. Not out of duty, not shaped by guilt, but because I love this old woman, my Gran, and I love myself enough to stand next to her in the glow of everyday.
And youin this peculiar, dream-logic landscapewhat would you have done?
