at Mass General.
I worked three twelve-hour shifts most weeks and picked up extras whenever I could.
Between rent and student loans, there wasn’t much left over.
But I had spent almost a year saving for this trip.
A year earlier, on Grandma’s seventy-ninth birthday, I had asked what she wanted for her eightieth.
I expected something simple.
Dinner.
A sweater.
Maybe something for her garden.
Instead, she put down her fork and said,
“I want to go to San Francisco.”
I stared at her.
“San Francisco?”
“To visit your mother.”
My mother had lived in California since before I was born.
I grew up in Oakland and only returned to Boston for nursing school.
I stayed because Grandma was alone.
“You haven’t flown in decades,” I reminded her.
“Twenty-seven years.”
“Mom always comes here.”
“I know.”
“You told everyone you were never getting on another airplane.”
Grandma calmly resumed
