Reserved for You

It was the tear, as I was lying down next to him, that I noticed first. His tear slowly falling down his ashen, thin- skinned face. His body gaunt and his arms thin, he looked as if he was a feather lying in a nest - light and weak and fragile. My father - in –law was dying. He opened one eye and was looking right at me as I gently wiped his tear away. He was silent and still as we waited for his next breath to rattle from his body. Nothing, but silence came. The silence tore my heart and stopped my breathing as we waited for the next sound. Even with my birth- related hearing loss this silence was foreign to me and at the same time, I was also filled with a quiet, warm peace that radiated from within me.

My husband was on one side of the hospital bed holding his dad’s thin, white hand and our cousin, Jeff, was on the other side gently resting his hand on his shoulder. As I sat on the bed, my hands rested on his arms where heart – shaped bruises had been gently tattooed by the hands of God. The three of listened and we became unified and bonded by the moments of time that followed us that evening. “The Three Musketeers” as I like to call us, were quietly reflecting on the day, as we listened to the quiet rattle that poured from Dad’s lungs and flowed out of his body.

Thinking back, his breathing sounded like my old coffeepot when it was almost finished brewing and the steam circled and puffed out the top. In my mind, I can see how this foreshadowed how my heart would transform into a dark blend of a lifeless, bitter, black liquid over the following year, as my father – in –law , my dad and my grandmother fell ill and died.

I was about to experience a deep ebony cave – like pain in my soul and body like never before, not just for myself, but rather for my husband, children and other family and friends. Ironically, I would find that sometimes my own breathing, in and out, would hurt like Ernie’s lungs hurt as they filled with cancer and mine with shallow air. Regardless, I would learn that pain doesn’t care what space it fills. Pain just sucks and is real in every sense – physical and emotional.

That day in the hospital I couldn’t process what was happening. What? Then silence overcame me as I became frozen to any emotion, only able to breathe in a natural, rhymic pattern and totally unaware I was doing so. What? He lay there still and quiet. What? I felt a pain so deep that my throat burned as I started to cry. What? My body slumped over his and he was still warm. Maybe, I thought, just maybe. No! What? The clock ticked, then silenced settled, the nurse entered, she listened for the sound of life to come from his body.

“I am sorry. He is gone.”

This scenario replayed itself over and over and over in my head for many long months.

On that day when Ernie’s pain stopped and his life ended, my mourning started ad my dance with this dark partner would continue much like a waltz for three years. I would find myself being pulled towards pain, spinning in it, pushing away from the pain and allowing myself to be held in a strong hold surrounded by the circumstances and memories that I was so afraid would fade over time as the music slowly faded as we danced together, this pain and I.