“Grandma. You’re not wet anymore. You’re okay.”
I was ten years old the first time I realized this fear had a name. We were watching a documentary about hurricanes, and when the screen filled with storm surge swallowing a pier, Grandma physically flinched. Then she laughed at herself, embarrassed.
The dashes were pauses. The “-Final-” was an ending. The “By...” was an invitation to fill in the author’s name—your name, or mine, or anyone who has ever loved someone too afraid to get wet. My Grandmother -Grandma- you-re wet- -Final- By...
It sounds absurd. Insufficient. A child’s observation, not a deathbed confession. But words are not measured by their syllables. They are measured by the weight they carry when the tide of someone’s life is finally going out.
Grandma was in her wheelchair by the window, watching the rain hit the glass. She didn’t turn when I came in. “Grandma
Then she walked inside, changed her clothes, and didn’t speak to me for four hours. When she finally emerged, she acted as if nothing had happened. But something had happened. A crack had opened in the floor of our understanding. I had seen her afraid not of snakes or bad men or darkness, but of something as simple and necessary as water.
She was also, for reasons no doctor could fully explain, terrified of water. We were watching a documentary about hurricanes, and
My grandmother was afraid of water. But she was more afraid of telling us why.