Lie Down in Green Pastures

by Emma Styles-Swaim

I’ve almost got all the air out. No matter what. No matter what.

I hold open the door for my Aunt Nancy and we walk into the facility holding hands. The lobby is spacious and high-ceilinged, with large windows showing the outside freedom of green lawns and willow trees. My grandma’s room is down the hall to the left.

“Much better than the last place,” I say to my aunt, squeezing her cold hand.

“It sure is,” she replies, smiling at me. The previous assisted living facility had dark green wallpaper and a smell like old bread and hair gel. My father and my Aunt Martha follow us down the hall. A radio on a cleaning cart blasts hostilities, disappointments, and old news into our ears as we pass. No one says anything, and we continue to think our silent thoughts as the voice chatters on into empty space.

We come to the door of her room, decorated with a quilt square my Aunt Nancy embroidered with my grandma’s name. Neva Swaim. And she is inside.

We stand around her bed. Aunt Martha has brought family pictures and a vase of Pink Perfection camellias. My grandma is slow to open her eyes, and when she does, the soft wedgewood blue is cloudy.

“Hi Gramma,” I say, speaking more loudly than I feel so she can hear me. Her eyes slide toward me, and for a moment I think I see a sparkle of recognition swim to the surface. But it doesn’t last.

“Hi,” she says, abrupt and disconnected.

Aunt Martha, busily opening the shades and tugging at the blankets around my grandma’s feet, says loudly, “Look who’s here to see you, Mom. It’s Emma. You know, I wonder if they’ve bathed her today. It looks like she’s wearing the same nightgown as yesterday. I think I’ll go find one of the nurses. They say they bathe her every day, but obviously I have to remind them…”

“Emma,” my grandma says. I squeeze her hand. She smiles and, with difficulty, winks at me, our special sign. “Have you… grown in any way other than stature?” Her words are clumsy and thick.

“What?” I say. “Yes, probably…”

“Well, bless your heart,” she says faintly, and closes her eyes. My Aunt Nancy leans over her and pats the hand I’m not holding.

“That’s right, Mom,” she says softly. “Just sleep. Everything is okay. Just rest now.”

I sit in a chair next to my grandma’s bed and stroke her hands as she sleeps. They are cold and knobbly, and her skin is like rice paper. I can count her blue tired veins and if I take a pinch of her skin between my fingertips it does not feel alive.

Have you grown in any way other than stature? Well, bless your heart. No matter what. Ay-nuff.

We go away for lunch, and when we come back, my grandma is sitting up and coughing violently. My Aunt Nancy and I hurry to her side and I stroke her forehead while Nancy adjusts her pillows.

“How are you, Mom?” Nancy asks. My grandma shakes her head laboriously and opens and closes her mouth, her tongue twisting inside the toothless space.

“Ay-nuff,” she says. “Ay-nuff!” Enough.

“Yes, I know, Mom, it is enough. Now you can just let go and go to sleep. Just rest.”

“No matter what…” Words drag themselves out of my grandma’s dry mouth. We wait for her to finish, but she doesn’t.

“No… no…” she coughs hollowly. “NO!” Wide-eyed, she struggles to pull the sheets over her stick-thin arms and then pushes them away again.

“Mom,” Nancy says gently. “How would you like to hear the Twenty-third Psalm? We thought you’d like that.” Slowly, my grandma’s body relaxes.

“Yam,” she says, after a pause. Yeah.

We sit one on each side of her, and I hold the old family Bible I found in my grandma’s house. The black leather cover is crumbling in my hands and the words “Holy Bible are spelled out in gold. We read together, holding my grandma’s hands tightly in our own. The words are sweet and old and comforting.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

“Ay-nuff,” my grandma says, and we sit back in our chairs and let the tears come, rolling fast down our cheeks. I look at my grandma’s face and I can see that she is fighting a battle with some kind of beast, perhaps the monster clawing at the inside of her lungs or her heavy immobilizing love for us or the shadow lurking in the corners of her eyes, spreading up from her fingers and toes slowly, slowly, but faster than she would like.

The next day we come back, just my father and me. We enter my grandma’s room, the air taut with quiet. My grandma’s head lies white and small on her pillow. The skin around her nose and mouth is tinged yellow, with lavender veins, and looks hard. My dad strokes her soft white hair with his heavy hand and she opens her eyes. She coughs shallowly and her eyes pull, beseeching us. I take a deep breath and then another and sit down beside my grandma to watch her chest rise and fall, faint like the heartbeat of a baby bird fallen from the nest.

At one point her eyes focus on mine and she grabs for my hand and squeezes it.

“Feed me, Emma,” she cries. “Feed me,”

I stroke her hard warm forehead. Her body seems to sink into the bed, her chest collapsing into the mattress and her skin falling in loose waves away from her bones and breath. My stomach has a rock in it; there is a rock in the center of me.

“Dad,” I say. “Daddy, I can’t breathe.” He is asleep in his chair. I look back at my grandma’s face.

“I’ve… almost… got all the air out,” she says.

I stand up and I walk with numb legs through the hall and out the door into the sun-bright courtyard. My chest is locked, my ribs are squeezed around my heart, which is leaving my body and flying into the sky. I lie down on the grass and close my eyes, gulping the fullest breaths I can, but still the ground pulls me heavily down. I cover my face with my hands. The world falls slowly still and the sun warms my stiff skin.

When I open my eyes a flock of geese is flying over my head. They call to one another in gentle honks. As the sound curls into my ears the stone in my chest dissolves and I take a breath sweet with grass and flowers and sky. The green grass spreads out around me, me on it like it is my own star and I am safe.

A month later, on the day of my grandma’s death, I write in my journal,

Your soul, like a small bird,

Flutters from my grasp, and I whither; melt and evaporate

All roads lead to peace and a slow-motion

Circus

In yellow, blue, red, brown

Ricepapery white skin peaks and valleys

You’ve almost got all the air out and

No matter what

Is there a place where I know your heart?

Is your weary voice

Dead.

That is such a hard word.