Glass Goodbyes

Nina was a middle child. She was the peacemaker - the passive one. Nina was always there to calm the dramatics of her older sister, and laugh at the silly jokes her younger sister loved to tell. She always went with the flow, ready to step in when needed. She was prepared for anything.

Then Nina’s father had a heart attack. She wasn’t prepared for that.

She wasn’t prepared to be shut out from visiting him in the hospital, because they were overcrowded with Covid patients.

She certainly wasn’t prepared for her father to die.

She wasn’t prepared to handle the logistics of coordinating a virtual memorial for her father, to run interference between her grandparents and her mother, or even to talk to me about finalizing her father’s arrangements.

She wasn’t prepared for her mother to completely check out, so lost in her grief that she wouldn’t eat, bathe, or even speak much.

Though local restrictions prevented us from having a formal gathering, we were able to set Nina’s father up for viewing, just on the other side of a glass window. It wasn’t the same, but it was something.

An attendant, Audrey, greeted Nina, and walked her over to the glass window, and stepped back, to allow for some sort of privacy.

She didn’t stay there for very long, five or ten minutes at most.

She walked past me, without saying a word, got in her car, and drove away. I wasn’t offended. This happened all of the time these days.

Audrey and I gathered the disinfectant and began to clean and close up.
There was a dainty handprint was on the glass. I stood for a minute, and tried to imagine how it felt to be so close and still feel separated from someone you cared about.

Just for a minute, not for long. It was time to prepare for the next one.

I sprayed the disinfectant, and before the streaks began to run, I wiped the glass.