It came.
Then it went away.
Here one moment.
Gone the next.
I worked hard for it.
And it was easily taken from me.
I cant explain why I’m still mourning what happened when I can do nothing for it except stand by and watch.
It wasn’t like I ever really understood what happened before it even hit us.
It was fast.
Painless.
Too fast. It happened to fast for us to avoid it. Least they made it. Jimmy. Carrie. Lilly. John. The made it out of the wreck. Barely. I couldn’t even begin to explain how scared I was, I felt i was being pulled from the fire and put on a rolling bed, taken away as men and women shouted at me…. Or maybe it was for me?
“Clear!”
“No pulse… clear!”
“She’s losing too much blood!”
“Get those kids out of here!”
Why were they taking my friends away, they were trying to get in the ambulance with me, trying to help me. Why were they sending them away? I was alright, I could hear them I could see them. I was standing right next to them, I was holding them. I was telling them everything is alright. We were alright. Except we weren’t. My friends followed in suit of the ambulance that took me too a while building, laying on my back the lights on the ceiling reminded me of the light and I wondered then for the first time if maybe I hadn’t survived the wreck like the others but then Lilly’s face appeared in my view, her voice chocked and strained.
“Oh my god! Oh My God! Sarah I’m so sorry! Sarah open your eyes please….” She was begging, my friend was upset.
Why? I was fine. She was talking to me and I could hear her, I was fine.
The others were suddenly there beside me, all looking anxious and scared, they were covered in blood, one drop of each other’s own, and smoke. So much smoke, they were all coughing and spluttering.
Doctors and nurses were pulling them away into other rooms, they would be fine.
We’d all be fine.
But that’s when it happened. The shock and that word again.
“Clear!” My body jerked forward. I stood next to the doctor, screaming for him to stop that he was hurting me.
“Clear!” My body lunged forward once more and I felt the shock serge through my heart to no avail. I started to grab the doctors hands, I wanted him to stop. It was hurting me now the little shocks of electricity were hurting me.
“Doctor, Time of death?” I gasped but no one heard. The doctor looked angry and I screamed. I yelled at the doctor that it was his fault. I yelled at Jimmy for swerving to avoid the doe. I yelled at Lilly for getting out the car and not helping me. I yelled and I yelled but no one heard. The room around me remained silent.
“No!” The doctor was fast and I was surprised to feel his lips press hard against mine, breathing into my mouth. I could feel the air fill my lungs as they lifted and fell with the rhythm of his deep breathes.
My cheeks coloured with the feel of his hand on my breast as he pushed down hard on my heart, pumping it for me. Why couldn’t he see I was fine?
No one saw I was fine. The nurse was pulling him away, holding him away from my body. My chest rose and fell gently.
“Look! She’s alive! Look!”
“Look I’m alive! The doctor saved me, look I AM fine!” No one heard me but they heard the doctor. And they heard the nurse.
“No sir, we put her on Life Support. She is no longer breathing.” Before the Doctor could stop her she pulled the valve free and my chest fell for the last time.
“Time of death, 19:56, Tuesday 16th August.” NO! I couldn’t stop myself I surged forward to my body and begged it to waken. Begged it to, tried again and again to re-awaken my sleeping heart. It would do no good.
No I stand looking down at my body beneath a white sheet waiting for the undertakers to take it away.
My mother had cried and my father remained sombre. My friends had all wept and said sorry. But i?
I remained silent as the grave. Silent as my grave I suppose. Watching myself from the chair in the corner, it seemed so surreal. I would still stand to address doctors who came into the room, realising they couldn’t see me I would subside and return to my seat.
One thing I realised while I sat and watched mourners enter my room. I couldn’t cry. My ability to cry had died with me. I tried and I wanted too but the ability and memory faded with each passing moment, I felt I was fading also. Every moment I lost a little more of myself, I could not remember my father’s name or my mother’s maiden name. In time I had also forgotten my own name. Seeing my friends come to pay their respects I realised I has almost eighteen years of my life with them and could not remember their names, for I knew I should of instantly. But however many time I grabbed for the memory it would not come.
Then just before the doctors removed me to the morgue a women entered the room with a small child in-tow. A small boy with fair blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, wearing A Superman t-shirt and faded blue jeans he could not be more than three years of age, the women held him high on her hip. When I saw them I stood once more out of habit but did not subside. I should know him, the faint tingle of memory prickled in the back of my mind. The small boy wriggled from her hip and onto the bed, so unafraid of what lay beneath. He pulled back the sheet, so brave.
I was ashamed. My face was bruised and swollen, a scar in my neck where the machine has been and my hair, although brushed, seemed limp and lifeless. If I could I would have been sick. But the boy merely bent down and kissed my forehead, a gracious move. The final bow.
“I love you Amy.” Amy? Was that me? I honestly didn’t know. He boy held hands with the women once more. Professional looking. She held his hand firm but gently.
“Do you think Mommy is in heaven now?” The women smiled down at him.
“Yes I think your Mommy is in heaven, and she loves you very much.” The boy smiled and looked straight at me, not the limp and lifeless version of me.
But me.
He smiled and I smiled back, he could see me I was sure of it.
“I do. I do love you Sammy.” Life let me go.
I had achieved what I set out to do. Seen my son one last time.