I Have to Tell You

October 2025

As I wait at the local bus stop, at the train station; as I sit very still, hands crossed, by the
platform; as I move around the airport – I rehearse over and over what it is that I need to tell
you and how.

When I arrive, you won’t be sitting at the kitchen granite table, where on rainy days we
shared pumpkin soup. I would not need to rehearse what to tell you at the granite table, with
no one around.

You certainly will not be in the yard, busy, hand up against the sun like in the day I lifted our
cat from the garden tile into the carrier and you said “That cat is as good as dead, no point in
taking it to the vet now”. The cat died that same night and I thought of how much experience
of death you had. It was my first one.

When I last visited you were on the pale pink leather sofa, sitting, and then, laying down. You
told me: “When you travel here again, let it be for us to be together. Don’t come just for my
funeral when I am gone”.

I left my place around 2:50 am. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up so I stayed up through the
night. I took the first local bus at 3:05, the intercity train at 3:30. The flight was scheduled for
6:20 and was running about half an hour late. The estimated arrival time is now 12:35.

Living away is not how it once was, when you were young. We speak often, weekly, on
Sundays, sometimes more.

I know that after I last left you, laying on the sofa, the pain you were laying with did not go
away and you went to the emergency room. Pictures were taken and darker spots were
found. No one told you what was found.

They told me there was no point in telling you. And as I look into your eyes through the
shaky video image, I know you know – you have always known more than you are given
credit for.

They started speaking for you at this point.

They have been waiting to speak for you. As they have spoken for me for pretty much until
now.

As I sit by the narrow plane window, my surroundings disappear and, suddenly, everything
slows. Perhaps this is how it felt living away when you were young.

I cannot look for more statistics, studies, stories of pancreatic cancer in ages over 91. I can
no longer arrange or disarrange the arrangements of my arrival. The world continues, and
for some 5 hours I am gone.

I sit back and think – what is it that I am coming to tell you and how?

I expect that when I arrive you will be in bed, in your room, at the top of the stairs. I imagine
walking in and you are sitting down. You would say I should not have come; and I would
know you are very glad that I am here now.

From your bedroom doorstep, looking in, they look unsettled, though, somewhat, proud. It is
not easy for them not to be the centre of anything that is going on.

When I arrive and you are at the top of the stairs, in your room, sitting down, you are likely to
ask me, first, about work. Did I leave it to come? And I will say: there will still be many works,
but Grandmothers I only have one.

You used to sit next to me and tell me I am your favorite. I used to lean against you and say
that it is not right to pick favourites. I wish I had told you – you are my favourite one.

When I arrive, you might not be sitting. You are as likely – if not more – to be laying down.
The shutters of your window are half way shut. You like to sleep with the shutters half way
shut. Like me. We like morning light, we do not like to be closed in.

They would scream at you about the shutters, get in your room and shut them at some point.
They think it’s the morning light that wakes you at dawn and they don’t like the sound of you
awake and roaming around.

They say they love you, me, they live for us, we should be grateful. But on a daily basis, they
try and they find it increasingly difficult to like anything about us at all. They are enraged,
annoyed, disappointed with my appearance, your extreme religiousness, the way we speak,
or position ourselves or move around.

I always felt you liked me – any shape – you liked me – despite it all.

There was so much screaming in this house. Sometimes, and increasingly as I grew up and
you grew older, you would hug your head, tilt it down; say it hurts so much to hear them
screaming, ask them to quiet down.

I left at some point.

*

When I arrive and you are laying down, in bed, at the top of the stairs, you might just look at
me and not say anything at all. And then, I would go lay down next to you and say
“Avózinha”.

When I was little and did not sleep you would hold me very close to you and walk around.

Even though you are the smallest one here, you stand taller than us all. Sometimes they
would threaten you, put you down. Say your habits are disgusting and advise me, as you
hear, not to tell them to anyone. They would threaten to claim you insane, say your care and
decisions will be handed to them – to do with as they like. You did not believe them, or you
knew they couldn’t; you never seemed to care much about this at all.

Sometimes, increasingly, as I grew older and you slowed down, they would turn to me, say
that I am unable, unstable. I shouldn’t eat more. I am getting fat and won’t attract anyone –
anymore. Then you would raise your voice and your hand over them and they would leave
me alone.

I need to think carefully – what is it that I have to tell you and how. They are unlikely to leave
us alone now. What I am heard telling you will be repeated at the large dining room table
over lunch. It might be joked about. Played with. Thrown around. At this table, that extended
family sits around, often the discussion is about us; though we are rarely the ones anyone
wants to hear from.

Last time we called, you were very still and began to say almost nothing at all. I decided – I
am coming now.

They grabbed, dragged you down the stairs, speaking, loud. You said softly it hurts so much
to be handled now. You were taken back to the hospital and the doctor looked at the pictures
and the spots and said you could have some morphine – a drip or a pill or a patch – but that
the other medication that keeps your heart working was to be stopped now.

I could say logistics prevented me from coming earlier. The truth is – everything can be
arranged. I am the tallest since a young age and the smallest one around. I was afraid to sit
with them at the granite table while you were upstairs, laying down.

All my life I was told soon you would die, that I would regret it – then – leaving Portugal. You
told me when I was little not to buy you shoes because you are old and won’t have a chance
to wear them down. But every day you went to church, you worked in the yard, you smiled
sometimes. You always seemed the healthy one around. I would repeat, often and louder
than I could control – “Grandmother is more able than you all”.

I did not believed that one day you would be gone.

The plane hits the floor and for a while goes up again, and then, finally, forcefully, down.
I realize that when I arrive and you are in bed, in your room, at the top of the stairs and I
come close to you and lay down, I will not care about what they are doing or thinking or will
say about anything anymore. I expect you will lean against me and say softly: “Filhinha”, my
little daughter, granddaughter.

You told them “I wish I did not have to leave you all”.

People and bags pile, push and pull towards the narrow exits. Catarina is waiting for me
outside. No one has even gotten me from the airport before. I get a hug, I get into the car, I
am told:

“Grandmother died tonight. They are waiting for you to see her, to put her in the coffin so that
the whole ordeal can go down. Grandmother was very tired and she died in her bed with her
daughters around.”

I sit alone at the granite table as everyone paces around.

It rains the whole day and the whole day after.

Two men come to take you down.

They ask me if I am not ashamed not to come up to see you.

They speak of it to everyone.

I sit alone at the back of the church.

Their voices echo around.

I hear loud whispering.

Do I not care what you think?

Am I not ashamed of sitting so far down?

Catarina comes to sit by my side. I lean against her and think of how she got your spirit –
matter of fact, clear, warm.

I think – if you are anything at all – you are glad – that we sit, stand together – regardless of
the specific arrangements of it all.

It rains as we walk the coffin to the cemetery.

It rains as we return – without.

I did not travel here for your funeral. I came to be with you and to tell you:

Grandmother, two time mother, my only Grandmother, as voices and hands were raised,
doors banged, words after words and all the chaos around – it was at you – I was looking – all
along.

Someone asked me recently where I got my good parts from. And I thought of you as I think
of you now.

As, more often than not, growing up, I would give anything and life itself not to exist in this
world – you were the reason I had stuck around.

And, even though life is better than at any other point now. Sometimes I think you might still
be the reason for hanging on. In case you were right about everything – about life and death – after all – and are still out there, somewhere, looking out.

Laura G. Ribeiro is a Portuguese writer living in Helsinki, Finland. Often seen as an
engineer, she has decided to be also a writer. Her writing parses through her lived
experience trying to shape it into something she can understand. Her autofiction has the
reasoning of her profession and the unpolished provisional nature of the rest of her life.