That Girl

Sometimes I still think about it. I remember the hospital, lying there in so much pain, so scared. I remember how I made them keep my room really cold; the cold felt better on my head, my face, my neck. Everyone else was wearing sweaters, even jackets, but my sheets were pushed down, covering only up to my knees. Not that it really mattered on the right one, cause everything below the knee was numb.

I think about that fragile girl, made brave by love, painkillers and a lack of other options. I think about her and all I want to do is hug her and cry with her and try to give her feelings. She didn’t have many feelings, just pain, fear, and impatience as she waited for her next Percocet, oxycodone, morphine, nausea medication, and Benedryl for the itching. The pain medicines made her itch all over. She scratched and scratched at her entire body and during her sponge baths made the nurses scrub her back, chest, arms and legs as hard as they could with the washcloth. I am astonished by that girl. Like a parent, it pains me to watch her in pain, more than I can say, but I’m amazed by her strength. I don’t recognize her as myself. I’m not sure why, but when I think of her, it’s as if I’m a presence above her, watching over her and trying, however futilely, to comfort her. I want to tell her that everything is going to be okay, even though I don’t know if it’s true. I want to stroke her hair and look at the wires coming from her head and tell her it’s almost done, even though I know the road she has left to walk.

I thought about her this morning as I was lying in bed and it made me cry. I didn’t know if it was from fear, pain, compassion, helplessness, or gratitude that she became me. I didn’t care, though. I gave myself a minute to feel it all, then I wiped away my tears and got on with my life.