“Exit but Make It at a Five-Star Hotel”
Author: Leah Didisheim
I sigh, pull my suitcase and open the door of the five-star hotel. I still don’t understand why we’re doing this. Does she even want to be here? Oh, but yes, I know about our dear traditions. More important than life, apparently. Every year we come here. It’s always the same. To use our heritage together. As a united big happy family. How true it is this year is unreal.
“Hi! So good to see you. How are you? Oh, you know…, fine…”, we basically all say at the same time after checking in at the reception desk. It all started with a phone call from my dad not even two weeks ago. I think in some ways, I knew it was going to happen eventually. Yes it was a shock. But I can’t say I was surprised to learn about it. What I was surprised at however, is that the plan to come here hadn’t been cancelled. That it was still an option – and a wished-for option at that – to come here. With her. For the last time.
My cousin is already in the room when I open the door. It is nice to be together in some ways. To share our sadness together. I can’t think of what the staff is going to think seeing us cry together every day in the lounge though. “I cried a lot when I learnt about it. Now I’m ok… it depends on the days I guess,” I answer my cousin. I didn’t know yet that I was going to cry every day. Seeing the others cry or hurt won’t help. Or you could say that in some ways it will. She hasn’t cried once. But she wants to. She feels her body wants to, she tells me while I unpack.
We talk a bit while we get ready for the evening. Am I happy with who I drew for our Secret Santa? Not really. She’s fine with hers. “Imagine the person who got her though? How horrible is that? I thought about it last week,” I tell her. We ponder on this while we finish getting ready. Our room is beautiful, as always. Outside, it had started to snow. And it won’t stop for the next two days.
I look at the mirror in the lift. My cousin went downstairs already. You know what, I’m sick of being sad. When someone dies, you’re sad because they’re dead, because you didn’t know it was going to happen. You couldn’t plan it and act accordingly. But when someone lives with an expiration date, you’re sad because they’re still alive. And everything they do. And everything you see them do. Well, you can’t shake the feeling that it’s the last time. Yes it’s great. We’re all here together. As this big family. But every picture taken isn’t taken because of that. It’s taken because, deep down, we know it’s the last one. I sigh, wipe the tear on my cheek, glue a smile on my face, and the elevator opens on to the first lively evening of our stay.