Falling - December 20, 2010

She was tired. She was hungry. She was aching. But she was happy.
Why she was happy escapes the thoughts of anybody. Even hers. She just knew she was happy.
    She was falling, descending down, down, down… And yet she felt she had all the time to think and all the time to lay there in peace. Where she was falling it got nearer and nearer, but this seemed to effect her not. Her hair was flying in all places. It could not be restrained, and she watched her healthy locks disappear one after the other. Her skin was paler than others, for she had not seen the sun in…well the time could not be counted but it was surely a while. She couldn’t remember.
    Boom.
    A loud beeping blew through her ears. She jolted forward as she felt the touch of shocking metal on her body.  Doctors and nurses blew past her in huddles, putting on gloves, calling other doctors for help. Telephones called her family members to notify them that she was okay, at least for now. And in the midst of all this madness, her mother sat in a corner weeping, of happiness or sadness, one could not tell, because the situation was bittersweet. But her daughter was still alive. And for right now this is what mattered. Her pockets could have been empty of all the money in the world, but her own blood was quite alive and was still breathing, and this is what mattered.
    The doctors left, the nurses checked in, the mother sat close to her daughter.
    “You’re sleeping right now, but just hang in there. You can’t be sick for any longer. “
Her daughter heard her and smiled faintly. What she knew, her mother did not. And this would stay this way for the next week. Until God called her and brought her home.
    The next morning was exhausting. Her mother watched her get pumped with various medicines, and her eyes were full of hope, even when hope seemed to be disappearing.
    The mother was very pretty. She had dark hair and hard blue eyes, which seemed to balance out her pale features. She wore no makeup, how could she have time for such things? And often she wore cardigans layered with interesting shirts. But underneath her skin, she longed for another person to lean on, but her husband had left early in life. When she was pregnant, she created a bond that nothing could break. Her love flowed through her and her daughter, creating a personal shield for both of them. This shield would never leave, and it protected them, helping them through the low points that seemed to make up their life right now.
    The daughter was almost an exact copy of her mother. She had dark hair and hard blue eyes and pale skin, paler than her mothers. But her personality was less needing. She did not need to depend on people, for she learned that people are less dependable than anything. She preferred solitude and to be alone, because it was here in solitude, that she could think and accept facts and understand things that her mother could not comprehend.
    It was one night, in a night of solitude, (her mother was downstairs negotiating with doctors) that she began to understand something that had been haunting her since her first day in the hospital.
    Often she wondered why she was sick, and why she was dying, and why SHE out of all the people in the world, grew older in agony.
    She thought of her mother, and then she thought of her father. And she thought of all the doctors trying to fix the unfixable and she thought of family and school and growing and being, normal.
    She pieced together parts that didn’t fit. She thought long and hard and she couldn’t find any answers until she realized. Things don’t need to be reasoned to be understood. She was dying and that was that. Whether he mom wanted to believe this or not. She was tired and God had been knocking on her door for some time now, but her mother forbade her to answer. 
    It was at this time that her mother walked in with a cup of coffee. She could sense her daughter thinking, the atmosphere was quiet and still. She smiled, despite the state she was in. She touched her daughters face, and her daughter found it necessary to rub her bald head. Self conscious and torn, she looked at her mom.
    “Mom.  I’m tired.”
    Her mom looked her blankly. “Then go to sleep little one.”
    “No, mom. I’m tired.”
    She thought if her words made sense. To her they did, but maybe her mother could not comprehend. She looked up to find her mother’s face.
    It was calm, and it was sad and it was in another world altogether, but to her daughter’s surprise, she did comprehend her words and she did understand and she thought.
    She thought that she could not let her daughter go. She pleaded inside her head and she said over and over again,”God you cannot have her.” 
    And he answered her and said, “But she is mine.”
    And there she cried. She cried and her daughter watched and she cried too. Their tears made slick tracks across their red cheeks, irritated by the wiping of their own hands. No matter how many times or how hard they wiped their face, the tears kept coming. They both knew a truth that need not to be said. God was knocking on her door. And her mother stepped aside to let her answer.
    Their pale hands joined together and she hugged her daughter, and she hugged her and hugged and she did not want to ever let go. Her heart ached and her throat felt as if a rock had been dropped in it, keeping her from talking. But she seemed to choke the words, “I love you. “ And her daughter replied to it and they continued to cry all night. They wept until sleep came to visit, thus slipping the daughter into another solitude world of falling. But this time she knew where she was going.

-Megan Stewart