2. Take a lot of pictures.
3. Write.
An excerpt from a piece I've been working on. Here's to finishing it...
The smell. She couldn’t get over the smell. It was awful.
Lacy sat on the edge of the hospital bed, feeling sick. Her heart was still hammering, drumming a steady beat-beat-beat in her ears. Every thump, every nerve-shattering pulse, reverberated deep in her bones. And while her skin felt cold and clammy, her muscles were on fire.
And that smell, vaguely resembling a mixture of pine scented disinfecting cleaner and stale urine, caused her to wrinkle her nose while simultaneously fighting brief bouts of nausea.
It was unreal. All of it.
Despite the fact that she had been fighting this battle for the last four months, despite the fact that she had prepared herself for this very outcome, she was scared. Ashamed, she hung her head.
But how can you prepare for something like this? she thought desperately. There’s no way. There’s just no way.
Tears welled, stinging the corners of her eyes. Blinking them back – for she was determined to be strong, if not for herself then for her family – she slid her palm across the stiff bed sheet, silently mustering what little courage she had left. Searching for her father’s hand, she found it, held it tight. The lump in her throat that she had choked down earlier while in the waiting room resurfaced, and for a terrifying moment she couldn’t breathe.
Calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, she silently instructed herself.
But try as she might, she couldn’t block out the feel of her father’s hand. Cold, limp, and rubbery, it already felt like the hand of a dead man.
Lacy bit her lip, and her palms began to sweat.
Through eyes half blinded by unshed tears, she dared a glance around the room. Sorrow, sadness, and despair settled over the place like storm clouds, pressing away any and all hope.
Directly across from her, sitting on the other side of her father’s deathbed, was her mother. Like her daughter, she refused to give herself completely over to grief, and her grim face, pale in the florescent light of the room, was dry. Her eyes, however, rimmed deep in gray-black circles, spoke volumes.
Her father’s death was going to be hard on everyone, Lacy knew. What she didn’t know was how they were all going to cope.
Behind her, as if reading her mind and therefore knowing how unstable she was both mentally and emotionally, her brother, Michael, laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Her elder by as much as seventeen years, his reassurance usually meant the world to her. But now, sitting by their father as he struggled through his last moments, Lacy came to the unsettling realization that she was beyond even Michael’s help. That even his comforting support wasn’t enough to halt the icy hot pain that was creeping through her gut.
Oh, God… What are we going to do? Lacy’s body ached from months of pent up anxiety, and she felt as if her shoulders were sagging not just from the heaviness of her own stresses, but also from the weight of the entire world.
The atmosphere in the room grew heavier, almost unbearable, and her father’s soft, rhythmic breathing became raspy and uneven. His chest began to heave dramatically and his eyes, shut all day due to the mild coma he had succumbed to in the early morning hours, popped open. Wide-eyed and groggy, he turned his head left then right, searching. Finding and eyeing each family member, he continued to struggle for breath even as his lips murmured unformed words.
Flying up from a chair in the far corner of the room, Lacy’s other brother, Kyle, nervously approached their father’s bed. His hands were shaking, and Lacy could see that his eyes were red. Younger than Michael by only two years, he was by far the more sensitive of the two and seemed to struggle relentlessly with life’s cruelties.
Lacy felt her lips quiver, and bit down hard enough to draw blood. The coppery taste lingered on her tongue, and she wanted to gag.
Even though she was sixteen and a junior in high school, she couldn’t shake the feeling of childish helplessness. As a teenager, she was excited by the fact that she could finally make her own decisions and, carved by her own actions, plow ahead on her desired path in life. But now, so early on in her path to self-discovery, life was teaching her that not everything could be persuaded by the mere power of positive thinking. That some things, like the death of a parent, were still controlled by Fate. And no matter how hard you fought, sometimes you were destined to lose.
Her father’s eyes slid shut, and his breathing slowed. An unearthly silence filled the room.
“He’s gone,” Kyle choked.
Daddy, Lacy pleaded silently. Every ounce of her being begged, prayed, cried out. Oh God, Dad, please don’t go. Daddy, please… She drew in a shuddered breath and waited.
After what seemed like hours, but was in reality only seconds, her father opened his eyes. Unlike before, they were now clear and focused, and he lovingly set them on each member of his family one last time. At that particular moment, time seemed to stand still, and as a single tear rolled down his cheek, he died.
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