Death 2: Grandma

We were in a tour bus, circling some lush mountain in the Australian outbacks when my dad's cellphone rang. All horse-play between my brother and I ceased immediately, much like the way dancing stops when the music's cut off. No one ever calls my dad's roaming phone when we're overseas. No one. Except family.

And when the call ended and my dad told us, gravely, that grandma has taken a fall, something inside me just froze.

My brother kept crying over the next few days, despite my mother's best attempts to console us and tell us that we wouldn't know exactly how serious the situation was until we returned. When we did find out back home, I remember even my mother losing her energy to console us. As the doctor said, bone fractures, nervous attacks, viral assaults all yield to the healing qualities of time, but brain damage doesn't.

Many sleepless nights and countless false alarms later, my grandma passed away without ever awaking. Through his tears my brother angrily confronted me, asking me how was it that I didn't shed a tear at all.

But you see, I do. You just don't witness it.