Step-Grandma

Geneviève, Nantes, Sept. 2021.

Step-Grandma

Geneviève was my step-grandmother. Widowed, my grandfather had remarried with this poet from Nantes thirty years his junior. During my last visit at her home in Nantes, in September, she complained that her cigarettes had once again been stashed away. I had gone out to buy her more. At 94 years old, living alone, all she had left were her poems, her evening whiskey and her cigarettes. I had been told, once more, to bring up the retirement home her cousin was in. She answered, ‘Okay, but not just now.’ The other day, Geneviève lay down on her bed for a nap and didn’t wake up. She was found with her head laying on her hands, as if asleep, smiling. And the retirement home be damned.