Haunted
God, sometimes it just runs me over like a Mack truck. Tonight I guess was destined to be one of those times. Joe and I have switched normal patterns and I am up later and he has gone to bed early. And I am sitting here listening to music, half studying, half messing around on the Internet and it hits me...the darkness...the silence...nothing but the digital radio streaming in, only a very soft light here with me and the hue of the computer screen...and suddenly it swims back into me like a fading scene that has drifted into the distance changing dramatic direction until it hovers so close upon me I can feel its breath on my neck. The greenish light from the chemo pump. The scrolling screen saver on the room's computer. The vague light from the mostly shut bathroom door. The soft hiss and click of the pump as it turns once more, delivering another drop of poison, torn between the horror of that reality and the knowledge that horror can become hope in the right circumstances. Wishing I had done more. Wishing I had been better. Wishing I had been God.
It is like dialing a phone by memory, sleep walking, not knowing you are doing it, until suddenly It is on the line....reality and memory separated only by the bredth of space and the yawn of time, a flavor that lingers on the tongue long after the food has left us. A scent. A shade of light. A touch of odd shadow. Somehow I cannot convince my heart tonight that he is not small and white in a white bed, sleeping, waiting, hoping, forebearing and I must get to him somehow. I used to bemoan that nobody taught me how to be a parent. The other side of that coin is that there is now no answer on how NOT to be one. I want to feel guilty. I want to rage. I want something or someone to blame. Damn his doctors for being the finest and it not being good enough. Curse his nurses for being caring, compassionate and competent and being as helpless as I to save him. Nobody lives forever. I know that. But why...oh why...would I have to outlive any one of them?
It was not enough. 13 years was not enough. I am overwrought with a sudden, violent wave of grief that took me by surprise as thickly as any ever has to date. I miss him. I would give anything for one more moment, one more day. One more hug. One chance to say good bye. One last smile, another shared laugh. A wave. A touch. One more smell of his warmth, one more observation of his brilliant, elegant hands. I am shaken to my core at the sudden polarity of this wave. I was fine. I was peaceful. I was accepting. I am frightened when it takes me this hard, without warning. I simply cannot believe he is gone. I still have not accepted it. I want to ride the elevator to the 12th floor, to smell the chemical scent and feel the nausea that fades as I wash my hands and walk to his room, to see him soft and vulnerable in his bed, warm to my touch, laughing at cartoons in the dark. Give me that moment back.
It is like dialing a phone by memory, sleep walking, not knowing you are doing it, until suddenly It is on the line....reality and memory separated only by the bredth of space and the yawn of time, a flavor that lingers on the tongue long after the food has left us. A scent. A shade of light. A touch of odd shadow. Somehow I cannot convince my heart tonight that he is not small and white in a white bed, sleeping, waiting, hoping, forebearing and I must get to him somehow. I used to bemoan that nobody taught me how to be a parent. The other side of that coin is that there is now no answer on how NOT to be one. I want to feel guilty. I want to rage. I want something or someone to blame. Damn his doctors for being the finest and it not being good enough. Curse his nurses for being caring, compassionate and competent and being as helpless as I to save him. Nobody lives forever. I know that. But why...oh why...would I have to outlive any one of them?
It was not enough. 13 years was not enough. I am overwrought with a sudden, violent wave of grief that took me by surprise as thickly as any ever has to date. I miss him. I would give anything for one more moment, one more day. One more hug. One chance to say good bye. One last smile, another shared laugh. A wave. A touch. One more smell of his warmth, one more observation of his brilliant, elegant hands. I am shaken to my core at the sudden polarity of this wave. I was fine. I was peaceful. I was accepting. I am frightened when it takes me this hard, without warning. I simply cannot believe he is gone. I still have not accepted it. I want to ride the elevator to the 12th floor, to smell the chemical scent and feel the nausea that fades as I wash my hands and walk to his room, to see him soft and vulnerable in his bed, warm to my touch, laughing at cartoons in the dark. Give me that moment back.
Comments