Do they understand that I'm about to die?? This thought hovered in the space around her as she looked wearily around the hospital room. Relatives and friends milled about, seemingly oblivious to their dying loved one. They chatted and laughed, enjoying one another's company. Occasionally someone would come over to her and try to make small talk (always about something other than what was about to happen) but it typically didn't last long for their weariness about the situation would soon get the best of them. Once in awhile she noticed someone staring at her as if she were a specimen in a lab, or just simply someone to be pitied. Her heart was breaking in her chest, but it was impossible to connect with anyone on that level.
The closest she came was with her sister-in-law when she first realized that she was dying. She had let her rest her head on her chest while simply holding her lovingly and knowingly. Her sister-in-law had lost her husband a few years prior so she was well versed in comforting the sick. She lost all sense of control in those moments as she gratefully let out a lot of the homesickness and fear that was already starting to plague her.
How she got to this place she did not know. She was barely an adult, but she felt like an old woman. The life force was draining out of her at a fairly rapid rate, so it was all she could do to try to hold onto the last moments. Even with everyone's awkwardness about the inevitable, she was still immensely grateful for their presence. She was even moved to tears when her electrician paid a visit. She hardly knew the man, but that didn't matter.
When you're losing all you've ever known, you are grateful for even the tiniest gestures of compassion. Her baby, her child, she could barely stand to see him, let alone hold him in her arms. It felt as if someone was ripping her heart right out of her chest in those moments. It was suffocatingly painful, but she knew that she would regret it forever if she did not spend as much of her last moments with him as she could.
But when he looked up into her eyes and gave her a sweet little smile she could not, would not, control the tears pouring down her cheeks, her sobs drowning out everything around her. He did not understand what was going on; he was much too young. Oh, the bliss of ignorance; how she missed it so.
Knowing that all these beautiful people would be left behind was something she never really thought about until now. Funny how easy it is to ignore the inevitable until it hits you in the chest, going about your day like you have a million to spare, ignoring everyone and everything around you that doesn't add to your sense of immortality.
She couldn't do that any longer nor was she going to try to pretend to do so. She sat there in her blank hospital bed with all the blank faces peering at their idea of her, wondering if the next wave of pain that went through her would be her last. She sat there in a mixture of death and life, one foot in one world, one foot in the other while she pondered whether or not it was worth it to try to explain to all of them what she knew to be true about life and death and everything in between.
Were they ready?
Would they digest the words or would they simply go through one ear and out the other?
Looking around at the earnest group, she knew they would have their day to ponder these questions, too. Leave them be, she decided, let the ignorant be blissful while they still can.
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