Anxiety • part 2

65 • home

I ran to her side and I took her hand in mine while doctors started to fill up the room. But I only had eyes for her.

"Ashton." Ellen said a few times to get my attention.

"I am so sorry sir but we need your approval to turn off the machines. It's time and the machines are just extending her heart failure." The doctor said and I looked at Ellen and Jackie, Ellen had her arm strongly around Jackie while she cried and they held her other hand. I waited way too long to reply, the words not being able to be formed or get out.

"Just please make that sound stop too." I said while tears ran down my face and I looked at her a last time. "Is there nothing else we can do?" I asked one last time and they shook their heads. "Okay, you're allowed to turn them off." I finally said, my voice broke halfway but they needed to hear the words coming from me. They turned off the machines and took the breathing tube out and Ellen turned the sound off herself.

She made the decision for us, she decided that it was her time and she gave up fighting. She finally gave up the battle she could never win.

"Baby I love you but it's your time to go now. I'm letting you go." I said before placing a kiss on her forehead, I rested my hand against her cheek, admiring her face one last time now without tubes. The tear drops that left my face were now falling on hers and I quickly removed them before leaning back and letting my body fall in the chair behind me.

"It's okay Sammie." Ellen said softly. I sat by her side and kept my eyes on the heart monitor which was showing the most rediculous pattern and it took a while before it stabilised but it was so slow and we just waited until it would form a flat line. Too slow for the monitors to register. But Ellen turned the sound back on and I closed my eyes while I let my head rest on her hand. "We will make sure that Olivia knows who you are, we'll show her endless videos of you and Jackie and I will travel here a lot to spend time with her. And we'll take care of Ashton too. We all will Sammie. We'll take care of them. And we'll be okay too. You can let go." She said and right after the slow heartbeat got replaced by a constant beeping sound and I started crying even harder. She just needed to hear that we would be okay without her. But I wouldn't be okay without her.

"I'm going to miss you so damn much." I cried out while I held her and someone pulled me on my feet and hugged me thightly. The small figure gave away that it was Jackie and it didn't take long before Ellen joined our hug and we held eachother.

I looked at all the machines and each of them told me the same. She was gone.

She won so many fights but she couldn't win this one. She couldn't win the only one that I needed her to win.

She promised me that she wouldn't go before meeting her little girl and she kept her promise but she should have been here longer. She should have seen the way she is learning to smile, hear the sounds she makes and seen the rediculous faces she makes.

Ellen was first to let go but I ran out of tears faster. I just stared at her and held Jackie close to me.

She always gave her all to everyone, she made sure that every person she met would feel loved and special. She would move mountains to help someone else but no mountain that we tried to move was big enough to help her.

We all stood around her bed, held onto her but stayed silent while we waited until one of the doctors would announce the time of death. It seemed to last forever before one of them finally picked up the chart. "Time of death, 2:58pm. I'm so sorry for your loss." She said and it was those two small sentences that made me broke down again. And this time Jackie held me together. The roles turned around and she tried to hold me on my feet but I was a heavy weight and Ellen came over to help her by pushing a chair behind me. I let myself fall down in the chair but Jackie never let go of me. She tried to hold herself together now for me. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around Sam's chest, I let my head rest on her chest but I didn't hear a heartbeat anymore. It was quiet and her chest didn't rise anymore from her breathing.