I’m preoccupied. My brain buzzes with the day’s schedule: work, writing, assignments, speeches, choreography, eating, sleeping, anxiety and repeat and repeat and. I’m on my way to work when my mom calls me. For the last year and a half, she has been a caretaker for my grandpa. Sailing down the road on autopilot, I answer the phone and am engulfed by a spacious, tense silence. “Vianni,” she says, “your grandpa has been in a deep sleep since yesterday.” I hold my breath at the implication. “I’m going to put you on speaker,” her voice chokes, “to say your goodbyes.” I exhale. I breathe in, dumbfounded. Confronting mortality before work was not on my agenda today.

What do you say to someone who is living possibly the final moments of their life? What does it mean to be in the undefined place between life and death? In that limbo, are you confused, content, angry, disappointed, at peace? From the fully living side of the coin, I had only a moment to determine what I might want to hear if I were about to die. “He’s incoherent,” my mom says, “but the phone will be right next to him. Okay, you’re on speaker now.” I took another breath, “Hi Grandpa, I hope you’re feeling okay,” I look to my left at the Mochas and Javas down the street from my apartment. I lament on, expressing my gratitude for his service to our family, his efforts spent trying to be a good person. I’m in my work uniform turning onto Sessom Drive. I wish him well, that he may go in peace and be reunited with my grandma, I trail off and stop at the red light. My mom carefully says “His eyelids fluttered. I’m sure he heard you, thank you.” She croaks out a few more words of comfort and appreciation before she hangs up.

I was struck by how mundane it felt. Going to work on an average Sunday, four hours away from home, and saying goodbye to my grandpa over the phone on my way there. Is that how life is sometimes? I imagine a world where I’m home, I can comfort my mother, make food for my family, share grief and community - but today that’s not my world.

My hand holds my chest as I pause and feel the significance of the moment. I think of my banality, how I worry so consumingly about my job and assignments, which pale in comparison to a time of death. I think of what this moment means to my mom, who has spent her life, from childhood to middle age, taking care of her parents. Freed from the shackles of her early parentification, a pang of guilt hits my throat as I feel relief for my mom.

It’s these complex bits that capture the full range of the human experience, where two things can be true at once. I bereave, I celebrate. I inhale, I hold my breath. I live, I die.

I want to go home to make food for my family.