nekomatta

Saturday, June 17, 2006

I've never walked into a hospital feeling so detached from the world I had long ago made my playground. I sit on a swing which is now rusty and dangling precariously by a decrepit chain while looking around just to realize the slide is bent and broken and the see-saw splintered into a grotesque mass. Suspended in a heavy shroud of desolation, all I can do is sit on my swing and watch the dying leaves eddy about on the naked concrete. I had come prepared too; all decked out in white, evil red eyes, long black flowy hair... the very makings of my own J-Horror flick. I was the Angel of Death lost in her own complications and at war with her emotions.

So lost in my thoughts, as I was walking down the stairs, I slipped and gracefully landed on my ass a few stair steps later. Despite my right arm taking most of the impact, my right ass cheek (and my pride) now sported a nasty, stinging bruise. Bruised ass cheek, broken wing... same thing.

One delicate step at a time, I made my way to the elevators and bleakly watched the floor numbers light up on the shiny metallic control panel.

I watched my despondent features disappear as the heavy doors slid open, beckoning me into a dimly lit hallway which walls were coated with a fallaciously bright and calm layer of fresh green paint. My nostrils were overpowered by the sterile scent of death that lingered patiently around every corner of the floor.

Have you ever cried so much, or tried to hold your tears in so bad your face hurts? Don't laugh.

For every tear you attempt to keep pooled at your eyes, but would traitorously leave a warm trickle across your cheek every once so often, there are a few muscles in your face that scream in protest to force the expression. Multiply that by a frequency of once every one minute.

Yeah.

To be extremely honest, I didn't really know my grandfather THAT well.

But just when you thought you could cry no more tears, you walk yourself into the hospital accommodation of four hospital beds in one cramped room with all its occupants just waiting to die, the composure you've valiantly fought to keep just shatters. Walking up to my grandfather, standing at the corner of his tiny bed... I stood there unmoving, unsure of what to do.

Will he fall apart if I touch him? Does he even remember who I am? I just saw him a few weeks ago.

And then he held out a shaky, wrinkled, fragile hand towards me.

And the tears came.

Together with the twisted knots in my chest and that one shaky, uneven, suffocated breath.

My grandfather sits there, holding my hand not realizing that the cancer and the dangerously slow but steady internal bleeding is killing him softly.

Several pulled facial muscles later, I joined my cousins in the waiting hall while my parents, aunts and uncles "talked" downstairs. I looked at my cousins. If they're not pacing about restlessly, they sit there quietly with red eyes and dried tear-streaked cheeks zoning out. We are all so different in every way possible but today, sitting on the chairs well worn in by previous occupants praying, hoping and crying past desperation for their loved ones, we are all unified as one big family with one heart-wrenching concern.

It is true though that sitting together, we are all kited into the gloomy web of forlorn despair we've spun and we ultimately feed off each other's depression causing an intensely emotionally charged atmosphere.

Emotionally hanging by a gossamer thread of hope and with nothing else to do, I gazed past the nurses' station, past the long row of files which held vitals of who would die and who would live, past the murky white window frame and into... an abyssal, obsidian tunnel of nothingness.
The lucky ones on this floor get to go home with their loved ones through the two big doors at the entrance downstairs. The unlucky ones (subjective, really) get fearlessly spirited away in the middle of the night out the window into a different time and place. In a sense, the hospital is the exchange terminal. Life is brought into the world here and cruelly enough, life is taken back a mere tower away.

It was awhile before the "adults" came back up. Listening to them talk had transformed me into the seven year old sitting on plastic chairs years ago while looking at my first aunt sleeping peacefully in the casket in front of me. Whispering furiously to my cousin, I could only ask why our aunt was sleeping there unmoving. Yes, it didn't really hit home that she was not waking up anymore.

It did a few minutes later when I saw my mom and other aunts start to cry. At least, my seven year old brain finally grasped that something was very wrong.

Transported back into the present, I'm not sure if I should be inspired by the adult practicality or a little shocked. They were talking about funeral arrangements. Technically, he is going to die but for crying out loud the man is still alive on his bed and they were already disputing about how much his casket would cost.

My mom and second aunt stayed behind.

I came home with my dad.

On the way home, my dad darted a glance at me sideways while I looked out the window at nothing in particular. He reached over and gave me a solid pat on my head saying, "Be strong."

And I cried to myself.

Labels: family