HER EYES TELL ME

I enter into her room along which she shares with her roommate and search for some light, some ray somewhere that can give me clues as to how my daughter is doing this morning. What light there are seeps into the room from the hallway which runs the entire length of the large and spacious building. The building itself is very much institutional and imposing, even from the distance of the main road.

Gently I place my belongings down, find and move a chair, and slowly with caution as not to disturb anyone, move the chair and rolling table close to her bed.

She lies in her bed across the width instead of along the length, her thin legs sticking out over the side of the bed as she in her deep state of sleep, the World carrying on without her. I sit and look and wonder how she will be today. Will the excruciating pain be present once again, will she fight me or staff as we try to help her to survive another day?

Suddenly a staff person will enter with a breakfast try for her and her roommate and this will not let me disturb her. I'd rather she sleep, I know better. Finally, she stirs and looks about her eyes meeting mine, and shift to view the ceiling. I wonder what her mood is. Slowly I try to straighten her out on the bed and she gives me indications that she is not happy with me for disturbing her. I do the best I can and raise her head, her arms and legs flailing and her face contorting.

Some people think she is not dying, that I am exaggerating the whole scenario, her life is confined to a bed, hasn’t eaten a full meal or walked in months and months. She lies in her bed without any real-life, listless and idle. She doesn’t speak or understand what is going on. In her thin state of 86 pounds I wonder how much longer it will last for her on Earth, there is very little liquid intake to make matters critical. She is indeed on the precipice of life or death. I fear another illness, perhaps pneumonia, which she is prone to occurring once again and this time she loses that battle.

I look at her with her big almond-shaped brown eyes and realize how beautiful she is. I think about her life, so pointless and void. There is nothing she enjoys, nor is there any dream or future she envisions and only the pain is hers, and I cry to myself. Her eyes once showed love and happiness, now that is all gone and only pain remains.

If an aid comes near her she starts to demonstrate her anger that she will be disturbed, that the pain she has will intensify and as she can’t make sounds she cries silently, and inside I cry with her, dying a little more myself.

Outside the World goes its merry way, people move about going to jobs or schools, breakfast or lunch or dinner, each with plans and ideas, something to contribute. I will try to feed her breakfast, she will get angry at me for doing so and refuse to eat and I will die a little more.

I used to imagine her coming over to my house with her children for dinner on a Sunday, or how proud I would be at her graduation from college and her wedding. I would imagine her a leader in her field of expertise. Instead, I see what a shattered and empty life she has been given, and why, I ask myself. What does she owe this life of hers to?

People talk about God, and in their fear state that he will bless us, that he will make it right and yet my daughter says, NO.  These same people, good-hearted people, say that he only gives us what we can handle.

Bullshit!