Forgiveness

Wasted moments are sins. I am cursed by each one that I have slung with casual indifference. Her smile broken by my temperament. My thoughtless disregard. Instead of being hollowed out by regret, the fear stirs and sinks its claws into what is left of me that feels.

I can’t see.

Backing out of the driveway, the light refracts. It is stunted by the heaviness of drifting clouds. I grip the steering wheel tighter, knowing I have no choice but the road ahead. The weakness of my brother-in-law. Summoning me to the hospital to be the one to render the final moment. I am lost, but I know the direction. It is splintered.

“The ambulance took her.”

“What happened? I thought she was holding her own.”

The breaking and cracking starts.

“She wasn’t making sense, talking but I couldn’t understand what she wanted…what she needed. She was agitated in a listless way. She couldn’t swallow her pills. The light, in her, was fading.”

A long pause and then he stumbles out the words, emotive and trembling, “I am scared.”

Searching. A rush of anxiety and dread. The first glimpse of an end.

“No, it can’t be. What did the paramedics say?”

He’s racked with denial. Spitting out truths but not hearing them.

“Her blood pressure had plummeted. Forty-four over twenty-four. I don’t know.”

And then there is the noise, guttural and low, followed by an unease of longing.

“I’m at the hospital now, Ann. You have to come. I can’t do this…”

“What can’t be done?”

I ask it, anticipating the answer. Sunk by the doom. I should have been prepared.

“She is gone, but still here. They have her propped up on a drip. It’s keeping her blood pressure elevated. She can’t sustain it on her own. She can’t talk. She moans and thrashes about some. Her eyes are open, but she can’t see.”

His tears fall in the silence. I don’t know it, but in that space is where I die.

I punch the accelerator.

The trees that line the highway fly past the car window like a moving picture screen. I concentrate on the blurred vision that looms in front of me. Panic. I can’t discern shape or form. In the few minutes I’ve been driving, reality has morphed into nothingness. I struggle to find the horizon. A balance, something familiar.

I have to get there.

I can feel the wetness on my cheek. It gains intensity. My body shakes. A release. A way to comprehend what is next.

Focus on breathing. Don’t jump from memory to memory. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Breathe out.

I remember the last time we spoke. Mere hours behind me.

“How are the kiddos?” she asked in between chewing.

Relief that she is eating. The cancer had stolen her appetite. It poked its way into every corner of living. Needling and robbing.

“They’re good. Playing now with their new puppies. You’ll have to come over soon to see them.”

My sister doesn’t like dogs, but she agrees. Her voice is airy and light. She sounds happy.

“What are you doing today?” I inquire.

“Trying to eat this Texas toast.”

I can hear the struggle. Everyday tasks in their enormity.

“Oh, you should eat. Probably best not to talk and swallow at the same time. We’ll talk more later. Okay?”

Another pause. The space between us diminishing.

“Yes, yes, you’re right. I’ll call you back in a little bit.”

We say our goodbyes and she doesn’t call back. And neither do I, because there is always tomorrow. The worst sin.

The accelerator is on the floor, trying to race past the pain. In the pursuit, my field of vision is lessening. It is collapsing on itself. The motion is stationary, everything smudged in disorder. If I can’t see what is in front of me, how can I be expected to continue?

With a sharp jerk, I pull the car into the strip mall parking lot. It is early morning. The sun finding a resting spot in the earth’s revolution. I don’t have time. I have to make this right.

“Please,” I implore to the gods, to anyone who will listen.

I call the only person who has the weight and resolve to be my anchor.

“Wayne, I’m stuck. I can’t do this…I’m not strong enough for this moment.”

“Hold on, deep breath, hold on. Do you want me to come? I’ll bring the girls and we’ll go with you.”

“No, no…we talked about it. I don’t want them to be subjected to it.”

The pristine white of the hospital walls. The glare of death in its anti-septic smell.

“Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I pulled into a parking lot. I can’t see. I literally cannot see.”

The fissure is complete, the perfection of life imperfect.

“You are stronger than you know. Stay there until you can summon your calm. You got this, my dear. She needs you. Your sis needs you.”

She has always needed me. To protect her. To make her laugh. To validate her strengths in the grip of inadequacy. What is skipped, or missed entirely, is how much I need her.

In that gentle realization, the light bends. Suddenly, there is a crispness to the colors, the way the green of the leaves effuses an immortality. The cycle will not cease.

“I will be there for her,” a whisper of acceptance.

I set my cell phone in the passenger seat. I wipe the dampness from my chin. The tear streaked path of resolution.

The span of minutes leaving my house to this nondescript parking spot, I understand I will not be the same. A finality to a shared history. A divide from everything known.

I let my forehead rest in the palm of my right hand. The rocking brings the cadence to normalcy, a quiet breathing. Courage gathered. Clarity to details. The buildings, signs, and traffic light in the distance are blunted into sharpness.

I resume the fated journey.

Easing back onto the asphalt, I cannot know that the pain will be exacting and crushing. An all-encompassing tidal wave of brokenness. I drive toward it with conviction, defiance and peace.

“Where you go, Michelle, I will be with you.”

I don’t see it as much as I hear it. The crunch of metal. There is a feeling of being airborne before the lights extinguish. Suspended between a wakefulness of contrition and remorse. An epiphany interrupted. A new life forward.