“In your life, you meet people. Some you never
think about again. Some, you wonder what happened to them. There are
some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are
some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do.”
| — | C.S. Lewis |
“I’ve spent the last six years of my life
desperate to die. He’s spent the last eight months of his life desperate
to live. With every breath he takes, a new miracle is born. I’ve come
to resent my own pulse. Yet, as I laid next to him in his hospital bed,
holding his frail hand in my mind, his pulse comforted me.
When I lied down next to him, he smiled, and I saw the man I once knew for a brief, passing moment. He smiled, squeezed my hand tighter, and talked about the song we danced to at my cousin’s wedding. He started humming it. He told me to tell him all about my classes. I told him everything, and that he needed to come visit me at college soon, so I could show him the pond with all the fishes. He promised me he would. On the little board in his room, the nurse writes their “goals” for the day. The number one is comfort—not recovery. They’re trying to make him comfortable enough so he doesn’t think about the fact that he’s dying. Tries to make everyone forget that with every breath he takes, there is a silent sigh of relief. She told me that she would keep him in her prayers, that god will come through in the end. Tell that his children who have to watch their father die. Tell that to his siblings who have to lose their brother. Tell that to his nephew who can’t even visit him, because every time he does, he loses it. Tell that to him, who is merely a shell of the man who he once was! Who can’t even drink a cup of water on his own. Tell that me, the one who he promised he would come visit in college, even though we both know that it’s a lie.”
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