Let’s go on vacation, Opa muses, eyes closed. He declares he’ll be out of the hospital in three, maybe four more days. Think about where you want to go, he tells me, as if I wouldn’t also choose sand, seaberry juice–a splash of orange against Baltic grey. A place we rode bikes together a decade ago, hunted amber on the shore. I suggest the hospice garden for now, tell him we can wheel out his whole bed. My daydreams are simple: him in the sun. But he says quatsch! and shoos away the help, then yawns. The billowing curtains beckon.
Michelle La Vone is a Nashville native who mainly writes in blog and memoir style. In her spare time she designs stickers for her small business Doodlemaus.