The Great Bay Window

My first attempt at a short story.  Please be advised that there is some language involved.  As this story is inspired by actual events, the few instances of profanity are direct quotes, and therefore could not be omitted.

Grandma Rose, this is for you.  Your untold story.

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     The old woman sat in her wheelchair, looking out the great bay window, facing the road.  Her expression wasn't one of pain, happiness, sadness, anger, or even boredom.  It was the glossy stare of indifference.  You see, she was there, but not really there.
     "Ma?  MA!  Jesus Christ!  Did you hear me, Ma?!"
     "Grandma, Papa's talking to you."
     "Huh?", came her reply; she wasn't looking at them. She was still staring out the great bay window.  Much of the rest of the visit passed like this. Finally, they pried her from the window, her window, and wheeled her back to her room.
     "Ma, we have to leave now.  Today's Tuesday; we'll be back Thursday.  That's in two days.  Okay Ma? MA!"
     "Grandma..."
     "Thursday," she cut him off softly, not so much a conscious effort, for in her mind, she was flying.  So they left, and an attendant and nurse delivered her dinner and medication, respectively.  Then she slept.  The following day, Wednesday, she repeated the same routine, but with a different visitor - her daughter.  From her room to the window.  Window to dinner and pills.  Then bed.
     Thursday came, and her son and great-grandson came back as promised.  Same routine.  From room to window.
     "Ma?"
     Window...
     "MA!  Jesus..."
     Flying...
     "Grandma..."
     Both.  "Huh?"
     "Let's go." They took her back to her room. Same routine. Same attendant and nurse. Things had been slowly progressing like this for months.
     A few days later, the whole family gathered in the courtyard of the nursing home for her birthday.  Everyone brought the old woman gifts, and there was homemade food, even cake.  For the first time in a long time, her mind wasn't on the window.  She seemed happy.
     About a week after the party, both her son and daughter received a call from the home:  "I'm sorry to bother you, but it's an emergency.  Your mother is on her way to Holy Cross...severe pneumonia."
     The old woman was hospitalized for over a month.  This was her fifth bout with pneumonia in the past six years.  She wouldn't win this one.
     The day she died, she told her son and daughter that she'd seen her sister, their Aunt Helena the previous night.  "Aunt Helena came to visit last night."
     "Mom," her daughter said, "Aunt Helena's been dead for ten years!"
     "She couldn't have been here, Ma," said her son.
     The old woman merely replied, "She was."  She went to sleep, and her children went home.  Later that night, the call came.
     When they received the news that she had passed, her daughter wept.  Her son, needing to appear strong, cried only on the inside.  Others in the family cried too.  Some did not though; after all, she had been a hard woman to tolerate in life, so for some, her death was not a burden.  Arrangements were made, and there was a mass of Christian burial.
     In the church, the family, most at least, grieved.  But the old woman wasn't in the church, nor was she on earthen ground.  She was finally resting in the place she'd been looking at, and envisioning for months.  She was finally flying beyond the great bay window.