Death Part 1

At the tender age of my early teens I faced a loss that will stay with me forever.

I knew death, I understood it well. As well as any child could, but no amount of understanding could ever prepare me for such a loss. It's a strange memory I hold deep inside me. We all knew it was coming and anxiously awaited for that dreaded Friday morning. We anticipated it but never spoke of it to one other. Yet, our minds exchanged that guilty thought, our hearts held that heavy weight.

We lived, slept and prayed a whole week in the hospital. The haunting cancer ward. Where sorrow and darkness caged every brick and every white-washed wall. And inside the dim room, there he lay, weak and neglected by his own body. Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. What little sustenance he could receive, fed through machines and tubes. Every new day felt as slow as the one before it. And somehow we knew why the suffering had lasted so long. So God could fulfil his lifelong wish. The prayer he would end every prayer with; to leave this Earth on a Friday, just like his mother before him.

He hadn't ate or tasted anything for months by then and the texture of his dried and tortured tongue mirrored that reality. He was drained; so parched for water. A simple sip, a wash down a dried throat. I can't help but dwell on my darkest secret from that time. The selfish day when I walked past him drinking a cool cup of water. Naive of me thinking he could just drink with me, like it wouldn't have caused him a world of pain. Like he wouldn't have given anything to just be able to drink a refreshing cup of water one more time. I hate myself for that. Why did I do that? What was I thinking? He smiled at me with a spark of sadness in his eyes. That memory is etched in my soul.

People came in and out. Saying goodbye and wishing us well. We'd take it in turns to sit next to him and pray, reciting as many verses as many times as we could. I remember whispering in his ears, while watching his helpless arms and legs fight a surrendered battle, I'd tell him: 'Don't give up, keep fighting.' Even though it pained me to know what he was fighting and who he was up against. I felt scared for him. Afraid for what was happening to him and for what lay ahead. Yet, somehow it still didn't feel real. It didn't register what the doctors were saying, it wasn't right or fair that the sweet and happy person I always knew was leaving me. He was going to miss the rest of my life. I could never imagine that. None of us could. What a selfish feeling, I would think, how dare I think about my future while his was in a deathly limbo? Amidst the unthinkable thoughts fleeting across my mind, I found myself wanting it to be over, wanting his pain and suffering to end but at what cost?

It was 5 a.m. Our mother awoke each of us from the communal room. She knew and she could see he was breathing his final breaths. We had cried an entire week and so did he but in that moment, those few seconds just before, silence filled the room. Terror filled our eyes. My gaze unbroken, resisting every blink to not miss the moment.  Investigating every part of the heart-wrenching canvas resting before me to make sure. Death was here and we felt it, we saw it.

A. B