I think that there are reasons why so many of us snore. My grandmother snores now to fill the empty bedroom. Ever since my grandfather passed away, she has been waiting for his response to her nightly calls.

When I would stay at their home I wouldn’t get any sleep at all. Every breath they made sounded like labor. I would strain to hear grandma, then grandpa, and on and on until I could drift off to sleep briefly myself.
But it would never last long enough for me to forget that I was sleeping in the bedroom next to my grandparents, monitoring their lungs and hoping that they would make the sounds of life until morning.

During the waking hours, Grandma struggles to remember things these days. She forgets who is married to whom. She forgets what day it is. She sometimes forgets to take her pills. She’s 90 years old. She’s allowed to forget.

I think that when she sleeps, she remembers, and she snores. I think that she still expects to hear his thundering reply.