To: Jonas Zebila
From: Abi Zebila
Subject: Sigh
Wednesday, 22 July 2015
Jonas,
Thank you. Thank you for sending me that email. I know it only said, ‘I love you, little sister’ a couple of hundred times, but it lifted my spirits. It made me feel less alone.
Gran is back in hospital. It’s very serious. Seems like last time was just a trial run. I’m trying to make light of it but it’s incredibly stressful. A diabetic crisis, a mild heart attack and various other minor things that all added together to put her back in hospital. She’s probably going to have a stent put in.
I keep thinking, if I was like Gran is, what would I want? Would I want to be looked after by family, or would I want to be in a place where I get looked after by strangers who are experts? It’s not like she and Mummy get on and she knows Mummy’s doing it out of love and concern instead of duty and obligation.
Or would I want to be around at all, is the other question I keep asking myself. The thought of not being here, not seeing Lily and Declan and the other people I love, is terrifying to me. The thought of being alive but living this half-life of knowing that I’m never going to get better and will need dozens of different types of medication every day to keep me going is terrifying, too. But then, I’d want to live, I think.
No matter how ill I got, I’d want to live.
No matter how ill Gran gets, how awful she is to me and everyone else, I think I want her to live, too. I just want her experience of life to be better and pain-free. I can’t imagine a world without Gran. I can’t imagine her carrying on as she is, getting more sick and relying more on others and hating every second of that, either. But what’s the alternative?
Gawd, that got a bit maudlin, didn’t it? I’m so happy because you actually replied to one of my emails and Clemency came with me to … OH MY GOD! She called the ambulance for Gran and I haven’t even told her if Gran’s OK or not. Better go.
Abi
xxxxx