30 Days Of Truth: Day Seven

Day 07-Someone who has made your life worth living for.

The beeping from this machine grates against my soul. I know it’s coming. Without fail, every ten seconds, the beep will come. It’s no longer an annoyance. It has become something I fear, something I hate. Deep inside, I know it is helping me. The constant flow of chemicals it pumps directly into my body allow me to live one more day. But still, the pain is still indescribable. The sickness fills my body and rapes my soul. I want to quit. I want to just give up. But I can’t.

I know she will be back soon. With her haunting smile and assortment of needles, she’ll have to replace this I.V. again. I know it’s time. I can feel it leaking down my arm. I can see the blood mixing with the saline and pharmaceuticals. She tries to calm me as I start to cry. That’s all I can do anymore. As I drift in and out of consciousness, the tears roll down my cheeks. Here I am, a grown ass man, reduced to tears. It’s the only emotion I have left. Everything else has been taken from me. Tomorrow will come. No matter how much I wish it wouldn’t, there’s no stopping time. So I just cry. The tears are all I have left.

The nights are the worst. My mind is alive with a flurry of terror. I want to scream, but all I can muster is a failing whimper. My eyes strain to focus in the pitch black darkness as I look around to see if I am alone. I’m sure she’ll be back soon. It’s been a few hours since I’ve heard a voice from the stillness of the night. Right on schedule, I hear the click of the door latch. Without warning the blinding darkness is immediately replaced with searing fluorescent light. With a methodical precision, I am poked, prodded, and heavily medicated. As the morphine flows freely through my veins, I let go. Tomorrow will come. As much as I fear it, it will come.

The needles pierce my skin. The numerous cold stethoscopes assault my body. The otoscopes invade my ears. The radiation blasts through my body. No matter what they do to me, I can’t convey the hell I am experiencing. I just cry. My body limp, my soul gone. I just cry. As I lay flat on my back to ensure the spinal fluid doesn’t leak out the hole they placed in my spine, I wonder if this is it. Have I reached my end?

And then I heard his voice.

“Hi, daddy.”

I felt his warm little hand reach out and brush my arm. In that moment, I felt no pain. I could see the bewilderment in his eyes as he tried to make out just what was going on with me. He knew I was sick. That wasn’t a secret to him. But seeing the tubes and machines hooked up to me must have been a shock to his psyche. I wanted dearly to protect him from seeing me like that, but I didn’t need to. The smiles and hugs broke through my medically induced haze. Without hesitation, stories of his past week flooded the room. He wasn’t really phased by a thing. He just wanted to hug me, tell me how much he missed me, and tell me what he did at school last week. For a moment, I forgot about everything. It was just him and me trapped in a moment of normalcy.

Normalcy.

It’s a funny word. But when you have gone through hell, you plead for normalcy again. Just a little taste of it was all I needed. I needed to know what was on the other side looking in. His little sister was at home waiting. She was merely months old and I was missing out on precious time. Time I couldn’t get back. I had missed half of her life on this planet. As I heard him say goodbye and close the door behind him, I was at peace. No matter what I had to go through to get home again, I would do it. Instantly, my pain turned into an anger. I knew I was missing out. I wasn’t going to let this thing beat me down any longer. More determined than ever, I sat up in my hospital bed for the first time in days. I knew tomorrow would come. And for once I wasn’t afraid of it.