That odd feeling

I visited one of my grandmothers yesterday. Not mum’s mum, mum’s aunt, whom my father refered to as the last surviving grandparent. Her husband passed away a month back. I was there for the funeral. I barely know these people really. As in their stories, who they used to be. But I like them.

Grandmum has 3 daughters. The youngest and the prettiest lives with her. May be shes not pretty, may be that’s my fancy. Shes been there since her parents’ health deteriorated.

They live in a house which is a sequence of narrow, tunnel-like rooms, sometimes having a bedroom or a bathroom for an offshoot, sometimes not. There is a courtyard in the middle where their two year old dog, Tuttu sleeps. A cautious fellow. His growls sound remarkably like hmmms. Whenever I appeared in his field of vision, he stood up and growled hmmm.

The daughter, shes quiet and nice, unmarried, had a job once, doesn’t anymore and she lives in this house of tunnels, this house which is tucked away at the end of a long, muddy, string-like road. It’s a quiet life for the two of them. Days gone by and days to come looking much alike.

There is simple, happy looking land all around, with bright white sand and green grass and trees and an empty cow shed. The train tracks are right by and in my head, it is always a goods train and its chugging along slowly.

But all through my visit, I was warped by one thought, that I can’t do this life. The daughter's especially. Still, a visit is alright.