The Hospital

Some time ago, Julie’s mum put a clipping from the New Yorker on her kitchen wall. It was a man answering the door to Death, and the caption read 'Just as I was getting my life together.’ Julie feels that more right now than at any other time in her life. This has to be some sort of sick joke. How is it possible that her mum, who had fought so hard to live for the past couple of years and had made it quite literally through hell – finally coming out on the other side stronger and more self-assured than ever – could be felled by a disease she didn’t even know she had until a few weeks ago, and couldn't even begin to fight? If God exists, she’s a sick son of a bitch. This was just all so inconceivable to Julie.

Her world is spinning, and everything she once held as true is now imploding into chaotic mayhem. She’s helpless to stop it. It’s a runaway train, and all she can do is try to hold on. Her mind is foggy with the pain of all she’s been through over the past few weeks, as well as all the grief and sadness she knows is to come. Everything is just happening so fast.

Way too fast, Julie mutters to herself, not caring who can hear her. She had given up caring about other people’s perceptions of her long ago. There’s no place for that here. She looks up, though, and suddenly notices a nurse standing on the other side of the bed – how long has she been there? It’s Joan, not Julie’s favourite nurse. She can’t remember hearing her come in. Julie smiles as well as she can in response to the nurse’s pitiful smile toward her.

“And how has our patient been this morning?” Joan asks in her sing-song voice that seems grossly out of place here. She doesn’t wait for a reply and instead starts organizing her mum’s breakfast tray. “Come now, let’s have some breakfast. Oh yes, Liz – it’ll make you strong… come on now.”

“Uhm, yeah, I did try to give her some breakfast earlier, but she wasn’t having it. I’m sorry, I guess I should have kep-”

“Not at all, deary” Joan cuts her off, “you must be pretty hungry yourself! You should nip downstairs and grab a little something. We’re all good here!” She was practically reaching operatic pitches now with her saccharine voice. Julie let her gaze fall to the floor again.

As she takes the breakfast routine in, she knows she has to get out of the room. She can’t endure it for another minute. And she really can’t stand that syrupy sweet nurse and her pathetic attempt at drawing her mother out.

She’s dying. Give her some dignity and cram the sugar, Julie thinks to herself, not for the first time.

With tears threatening to spill over, Julie admonishes herself. She hates crying in front of her mum. She’s trying to be the strong one. She swallows them down, hard.

Not here. Not now. Not yet. Anywhere but here, she pleads with herself, Please.

Her eyes are boring into her lap and her fingers are worryingly working the hem of her now fraying sweater. As her mum eats, Julie manages to lift her head just enough to see her own feet and wills them to move, praying they’ll do as she says. They do, she’s momentarily shocked, and she feels unsure of her footing as she exits the room and walks aimlessly, looking for somewhere to escape.

****

Nobody can really say how long the tumour - that evil fleshy ball of death - has been festering inside her mother. By the time they found it, it was far too late for any sort of medical intervention, and within only a couple of weeks she’s morphed from the strong, independent mother Julie knew, to someone she barely recognizes. She’s essentially buried under all the tubes and machines that were designed to keep her going. Her face is puffy and bloated from the steroid-induced-swelling, and her normally crystal clear cerulean blue eyes now seem clouded with a near-constant look of confusion, bewilderment, and fear.

****

She doesn’t know where her feet will take her, only that she needs to leave. Leave the pale face of her once vivacious mum, now painfully devoid of any animation; leave that drab olive-green painted room; leave the fluorescent lights and dingy windows that look onto a dismal parking lot – not much need of a view, she supposes, when you’re dying. She needs to leave the sights and sounds – the unending beeps and blips that indicate her mum is living, but not alive. She needs to somehow leave the sorrow of what she’s witnessing behind. She knows she can’t though, not really. Death is chasing her, and no matter how fast she runs, he always seems to be on pace.

As she stalks along the endless corridors of the hospital that her mum is spending her last days in, the weight of everything that has happened lately hits her. It isn’t a graceful light slap to the face, but rather a sharp, vomit-inducing rage punch to the gut that nearly has Julie doubling over. She shakily makes her way to a bench she (finally) spots down the hall. Keeping that bench as her marker, she moves deliberately, consciously putting one foot in front of the other.

Right, left, right, she mumbles aloud as she walks, keenly keeping her eyes level and, with her hand on the railing, she manages to stay somewhat vertical. 

****

Her mum can no longer speak, so when it’s only Julie here, especially at night, she sits in scared silence. Machines, that initially Julie stared at in awe, but now just make her angry – are jammed into her mum’s hospital room. At night, when unbridled terror creeps over her just as the blanket of darkness creeps over the city, her imagination takes over, and she thinks they look like behemoths, like archaic failures of technology. Failures at slowing down the aggressiveness of her mother’s cancer. Failures at saving her from a death sentence, failures at keeping Julie’s world upright. She feels defeated by these beasts, and yet, they are her only (and constant) companions in the hushed stillness of the night. The sounds they make used to somewhat lull her to sleep – safe in the knowledge that they were doing their jobs at keeping her mum here. Now she hears their ceaseless noise as almost mocking.

****

When Julie was about ten years old, her mum was diagnosed with bipolar. Since then, she has been in and out of hospitals, and there has been little time and opportunity to really get to know her – she always assumed she’d get to learn more about her as she grew up. Her whole life she’s felt like she’s standing just on the outside of the life she so longs for. She gets snippets. She gets teasers. But she wants the whole story, the whole life. She wants to understand more about this incredible woman who always seemed to be racing against time, and now her time is almost up. 

****

This can’t be happening, she whispers. Her mind just can’t, won’t conceive of it. It isn’t fair, she thinks for the umpteenth time. It’s just not fair.

She finally makes it to the bench and sits down with what must be the most defeated of sighs, as she’s met with startled looks from others in the area. She sheepishly averts her gaze and switches on her phone. She’s pretending to read – but the dam of tears that had threatened to overflow and overtake her earlier has been breached, she can no longer stop them. She tries to swallow the tears away, to push them down, but she’s lost the battle. She resignedly and unflinchingly lets them fall.

She watches as people come and go throughout the hospital. Beaming smiles going to welcome new babies. Parents’ faces are screwed into worried masks as they cluck and hover over sick children. Lovers and caregivers bring myriad ‘get well’ stuffed toys, cards, and flowers. She furtively searches their eyes, looking for someone who might be going through the same agony as she is, someone who might understand. But she’s sure their pain can’t match hers. Rather, patients, visitors, nurses and doctors glide through the hallways, smiling and nodding to one another, chattering away, somehow oblivious to the shell-shocked pain in her eyes.

She sits there quietly for a while, allowing her gaze to look from the bottom of the scuffed-up walls to her shoes, and back again, not wanting to raise her eyes higher than midway, even that just seems like far too much energy.

Julie looks back at her phone and absently swipes along her friends’ Facebook posts and Twitter feeds, mostly just to give her mind something else to focus on – only vaguely recalling a time of those carefree worries. Back to when the biggest concerns were your peers and your social status — and a feeling of jealously floods over her. As she’s scrolling, she notices a few friends have posted lovely little cards and notes to their own mothers. She hadn’t realized it was Mothers Day until this very moment. She switches her phone off and seriously considers throwing it at the wall.

Yeah, cuz I need that right now…

Here she is, once again standing on the outside peering into the life she’s always wanted. She’s angry at herself for being so petty. She’s angry at her mum for leaving her. She’s angry that life will never be the same.

A little girl sits down beside Julie, smiling and sucking on a lolly. She envies the young girl, and forces her lips to form some sort of smile in return, then goes back to pretending she’s paying attention to her phone.

“Meghan! Don’t do that! How many times has mummy told you to stay close?” Julie first hears, then sees, a panicked mum racing over to the benches where she and the little girl are sitting. The woman puts her hand on the little girl’s head, almost patting her. Julie can see relief wash over the woman’s face as she nears the two.

“I’m sorry, mama, but this girl looks so sad, and I just wanted to try and cheer her up.” Julie’s heart melts a little bit when she hears this. Out of all the people milling about, it’s a child that finally acknowledges the pain in Julie’s eyes. A child that still has her own mum.

“I’m sorry, I hope my daughter didn’t disturb you,” the mum looks at Julie with compassion. She seems nice – well put together and clearly very devoted to her little girl.

“No, no, no. Really, it’s just nice to see such a happy, smiling face” Julie smiles, this time far more genuinely, at the little girl.

“Hi, Meghan. My name is Julie.” She nods in Meghan’s direction.

“Julie. That’s a pretty name, don’t you think, mama?” Her naivete was endearing.

“It’s really nice to meet you, Meghan. Make sure you mind your mum, now. You only get one.” With that, Julie stands up and delicately wipes the last of her tears away.

She steels herself with a deep breath and a slightly renewed sense that, although she has no control over the situation, no way to mitigate the outcome, no way to change the ending of this story, she can at least be there with her mum. Holding her hand. Singing softly to her as she listens to the laboured breathing that will all too soon cease, marking the end of her struggles, the end of her hurt, the end of a life that was almost too painful to even recount.

The End