LEVITATE Magazine Issue 5

Breadcrumbs Michelle Muñoz I miss the inconvenience of breadcrumbs. Their idle discomfort lying between couch cushions or on tabletops waiting to be broomed, or wiped, or vacuumed. I also miss the smell of toast. Her toast. My grandmother would make buttered toast and Cuban coffee every morning, because American coffee “tasted like shit.” She would limp weakly on her walker from her room to the kitchen while scratching the tile floor. I miss her intentional silence. She would sit timidly at the dining room table facing the swampy view—mangroves and algae tracing the rim of our backyard pond. She would only talk if spoken to.

I haven’t seen breadcrumbs in two months. The heart attack came three weeks before COVID-19 mattered—there was a time when it was just a rumor. The two strokes came a few days after that. It seemed as if tragedy came rushing in like the endless pit of algae sitting in the pond outside. You can try dredging it out, but you’ll drown before the water is clear. My grandma now sits still in an unintentional silence. She is bedridden. She can no longer move or get up to go to the bathroom. She can no longer make toast or use her walker. She is helpless.

I look at my phone and notice the time: 9:49. At ten, we clean Ma. That’s what I call my grandmother, a slight homage to her being my second mom. Cleaning entails removing her diaper and wiping her feces clean. I rush downstairs and see my mom sitting helplessly in the blue chair outside of Ma’s room. There’s no metaphor to make out of the blue chair; the color theme of my house has been blue for years.

“How long has she been awake?” I ask. My mom barely has the strength to look up.

“About an hour.”

“Do you want to clean her at ten?”

“Yeah.”

We head inside her room and it’s pungent like always. It’s the same dirty smell that stains elderly homes: pee and poop. Ma’s eyes 9