The Long Walk
The elevator hisses shut behind me. Ahead of me lays the terrifying walk to those doors with the ominous sign: Restricted Area. Behind those doors lie the mostly dead, the partially alive, and their loved ones who keep silent, tearful vigil. The Intensive Care Unit.
I am one of those keeping vigil.
Each step comes in slow motion. I hate this walk and the questions it brings. Will she still be there, clinging to life, tied to so many machines and tubes? Or will I round the corner to see her door open, room empty, her body in the morgue waiting for me to dispose of it? Will she have slipped away, alone, desperate, unaccompanied into that dark mystery of death we all fear so much? What if she gave up and left while I had gone home for a troubled sleep and a change of clothes? What if, during my long drive back to the hospital, they tried to call me, to tell me to hurry, that there wasn’t anything more they could do and it was time to say goodbye, but they couldn’t reach me and she died alone? Would she know that I didn’t want it that way? That I wanted one more chance to tell her that I loved her and that my life would end when she left? That I tried the very best I could to keep her alive?
My footsteps echo in the deserted hallway. Left turn, five steps, right turn, thirty steps. Just one more left turn and I would have my answer. My head is screaming inside. I can’t breathe. No, no, turn back the clock. This can’t be real. This isn’t happening to us. Please let her be alive. Give us one more day together. Just one more day. Please?
Left turn. For today, the answer is….
Comments
This is a great piece of writing. Hope to see more from you!!!
I love your writing, too, and all the collaborations you are doing. I’m going to follow your lead in that.
– Chris Donner
now for the rest of the story, I will be looking,
im looking forward to reading more of you and your partner’s journey Chris
Wow. This is really amazing. I swear, I’ve done this exact same thing a few times. It’s a horrifying surreal experience
I think it was the most frightening part of it all. I hated going home because I knew I’d have to face that walk again, and each time brought the same fear with every footstep. I knew you’d understand, Bruce.
– Chris Donner
“YOU HAVE A GIFT”…..straight from the heart….
been there. done that. it’s heartwrenching. brought tears to my eyes reading this, full of memories. Bravo for writing it all done.
Very Powerful Chris.
Dave
Oh no! Where’s the rest of the story? Even though I know in the end things turned out for the best as you are obviously still with your partner from reading the past comments, I still long to read the rest. Very nicely written, I would definitely pay for it in book form.
Just stumbled over your writing and had to leave a comment. Cheers!
An excellent and deeply moving piece of writing, Chris! You tell it how it happens and that is the best way. No frills!
My poor, dear mother did not even have the benefit of intensive care. She died in the hands of idiots, who did not seem to know their ears from their elbows, and whose words turned out to have been a tissue of lies. “Comfortable”, did they say!? If that was their idea of comfortable…!!
It so happened that I was not with my mother, when she passed away. I had left my friend’s phone number with them, so that I could be contacted, should the need arise, but I was coming back for the evening visiting anyway. I just needed to clear my head and the walk to my friend’s house a few streets away seemed the best way to do it.
Unfortunately my friend had had to go out. I waited for her return for 15 minutes or so, then excused myself and made my way back to my mother’s home, still unable to believe that she would not be coming to answer the door to greet me. The house was so full of her presence during her absence, that it seemed uncanny, surreal.
I never got there. Apparently ten minutes after I left, the hospital staff rang, asking me to come in, as there had been a change in my mother’s condition.
My friend’s husband set out to find me, but of the two possible routes to her home, he chose the one that I had not taken. Eventually, catching up with me, he broke the speed limit getting me to the hospital, but it was too late. She was gone and I had not been there for her! I was so angry with myself!
However, she had not died alone. A colleague of hers had been there at the time of her passing, and there was a marked discrepancy between the time of death given by the colleague and that given by the hospital staff. When they rang, she was probably already dead.
I managed to work through the worst of my grief by writing a detailed description of her terminal illness and death, which ran into 100 pages of manuscript, but to this day I feel ill at ease in that hospital and in hospitals in general (even though I had worked for years as a nurse and then as a medical secretary) because of their lies.
I think that your writing will resonate with all who have lost a loved one in this way, but has value in preparing people to face the inevitable also.
I have added it to my Favourites, so that it will be readily available to more people.