breathing in, this too,
breathing out shall pass
do you remember that scene at the end of inception? when he’s standing over his father’s hospital bed in tears?
I never thought a moment like this would happen to me.
sat besides my father as he hooked up to tubes, chemicals sustaining him.
he is meant to he be the hero in my story
i look up at my dad’s face as we climb the tallest water slide in the park.
and now he lays helpless as the road to recovery lingers.
i try to remind myself this is in fact, not a death bed. try? fail.
these thoughts are whispers of my grandfather, jumping out of his fort launderale hospital bed, hopped up on morphine - just asking for one more dinner together with his family
grandpa hands me a fork full of lamb osso bucco and his glass of french cabernet, it stains my teeth.
i don’t fair well in hospitals and sickness.
it’s an indescribable feeling of lonliness mixed with sadness and despair.
sat in the sea of hums, rings, bells and creaky wheels paced against the linoleum floor.
the brave impentrable world traveler lays restless- a heart shaped pillow against his cracked chest to cough out the phelgm as his lungs revive.
watching someone so guarded bare his soul to the mercy of modern machines
we keep climbing the slide,
i’m terrified of heights and he ensures me that there are things in this life that will scare you and they will be worth it
i take the plunge down the slide and i can feel the cold water rushing beneath my legs and back
more hums, more deeps, a nurse draped in her modern day superhero’s uniform walks in and adjusts the knobs and tubes and buttons that are giving us hope
i close my eyes and stare longingly for this moment to pass,
breathing in, this too,
breathing out, shall pass
the doctors tell us he shouldn’t be alived
the ‘widowmaker’ should have wrapped her last web around his heart
maybe the food my grandfather shared was his way of coping, but it almost took him too.
sitting and staring at my father breathe through mechanisms only used for those cannot sustain themselves and who are not meant to be here.
i feel as if i’m watching a movie of my life play out in real time, but i’m here too.
i try to sit with the somber joy of the situation
breathing in, this too
breathing out, shall pass.