Go First
Carly Gooch

I remember my Grandma Margo more by her absences than her presence—her absence in my childhood, at family gatherings and celebrations, and even at family members’ funerals. In my mind, she was always more of a disembodied voice than a real human. Visits to my grandparents’ house were punctured with her shouts, which echoed from the bedroom she left only to use the toilet. When she wasn’t shouting, she was ringing a small, golden bell at her husband, my Grandpa Charles, who waited on her every need. It wasn’t that she couldn’t walk— we’d seen her up and moving with surprising vigor on a few rare occasions when Charles was sick or otherwise indisposed. No, Margo was just egotistical and lazy. She despised all children (including her grandchildren) and was a violent hypochondriac. In fact, I’d always found her to be distinctly unrelatable. Blood, it seemed, was the only thing we shared.

When my Grandpa Charles died in a vehicle accident and the news made its way to Margo, the rest of the family was disgusted (but unsurprised) to hear her stutter in response: “B—but who’s going to take care of me?”

Beside her, the bell on her nightstand glinted from the lamplight. How many times would she accidentally ring it before remembering he couldn’t answer her summons anymore? But rather than slow her down, Charles’ death seemed to inspire an incessant desire to ring it more. A hospital frequenter, she ignored us all when we told her she couldn’t ring it at the nurses, and we were left muttering apologies to the medical staff. In the end, her children (who she’d rarely spoken with before Charles died) were left to rotate time out of their busy lives to care for her.

Though Charles was her husband, it was strange to see her at his funeral. Even I (who wasn’t particularly close to either of them) felt less out of place than she looked. Grandkids joked under their breath, having raised a bet on whether she would show up. It wasn’t without reason; she hadn’t bothered to come to Charles’ mother’s funeral the year prior. He didn’t mourn alone (grandkids were gathered beside him), but he still somehow looked lonely. Despite her indifference and regular selfishness, he spent over a decade responding to every ring of her bell. 

And so it was, the last person who held a true desire to care for her now lay in his casket. Relatives grieved, reminiscing in quiet tones, and Margo sat, arms folded, gazing off into the distance. I don’t remember her speaking at all during the procession, and certainly not crying.

The only words I heard her mutter (and the last words I would ever hear her speak—she died less than a year later) came as my aunt wheeled her from the viewing room—

              “I wanted to go first.”

And even as I tried to hold on to my anger towards her, I felt it soften and change. Against my will, I saw a part of me in a part of her. Death didn’t scare or even distress Margo. It loomed over her and Charles the moment they stepped into old age. She might not have cared about how long her life lasted, just that she was cared for and loved for every minute of it. And I understood.