Do you feel death close by?

My grandmother used to be very close to me. I used to sit in her sitting room for hours listening to her stories, it was always so warm in that room, and the cold winter darkness outside seemed to retreat, both from my mind and from the thick wooden framed windows of the old house. I am older now, and my grandmother has since passed on, but her stories are still as vivid as they were when they were spoken into the dusty air all those years ago. I used to think it was my grandmother herself pricking my consciousness when the stories used to pop back into my mind for no apparent reason. I could almost swear I felt her presence, even though I know better than to believe that.

On the bus into college this week, I was reminded, as usual for no obvious reason, of one particular night in her house. I can remember the way the wind flicked the leafless branches of the trees against the windows that night, as they so often did when the cold winter wind was roused. It always frightened me, but never once did I tell her it did. She was sipping from her cup of tea. I can never remember her without that cup in her hand, and the kettle always seemed to be boiled, ready to make another. The words came from her mouth so suddenly without any warning that the silence which followed their utterance was so profound that the ticking of the old clock upstairs seemed to fill my entire mind, my entire being, as if it was the sound of my own heart beat.

"Some day you will die Sarah" She didn't look at me, "Some day your family will sit together for dinner, and it will be the very last time that ever happens"

I looked at her in horror. This was so far from what she usually said. Her hands were still. The flicker flames of the fire glinted in reflection on her thick glasses. Why did she say this? A million thoughts rushed past me, but I wasn't able to grasp a single one. I felt s surge within myself, and my eyes welled up.
But then she looked at me.
On her face was that same kind smile that had comforted me all my young life, and I understood. She didn't want to scare me. She wanted me to appreciate what I had while I still had it. She didn't need words, and we never spoke of it again. I found out a couple of weeks later that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Nothing has ever had such a deep effect on me.

I got off the bus at UCD in the chill of the autumn air in a slight daze. I was stuck somewhere else, a place that doesn't exist anymore, looking into the eyes of my dead grandmother.