Vidh
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Home
At the back of my closet I keep the mask they cast for your radiation treatment. In the first year we looked at it without fear, so full of hope were we that the tumour was gone. I don’t know what to do with it now. It has become a death mask, its mouth a wide empty hole like a silent scream.
I prayed and prayed this wouldn’t happen you say when the tumour returns. This time they cut it out and leave a hole in your throat. I had never heard the word stoma before. I will never sing again you say.
You are examining your throat. A small red mark has appeared near the stoma. What the hell is that the surgeon says. They plan six chemotherapy treatments. Some day science will scoff at this barbarism. Miraculously the tumour shrinks, seems to disappear.
Not doing the last two treatments will not make much difference the oncologist says. Having taken us this far in hope he sends you home to die, not interested in being witness to the end of the story. Still hope lingers: shall we make another appointment I ask.
You are no longer able to eat. You cannot swallow. You keep your mouth wet sucking the pleasure out of Popsicles, spitting the water into a small green pail. Already I am alone. You, unable to speak, leave me quiet too. Sometimes in the middle of the night I reach over and hold your hand. There are no words, just this reaching out, this holding on.
Weeks now without rain. Grasshoppers infect my yard. Moths hide in the darkness of the gazebo. Wasps have built a nest under the front step. There is a dead rabbit under the deck. With a hooked length of wire the maggot-infested carcass is dragged out.
Beside your piano in the living room I have them put the hospital bed. When you need me you tap its metal railing. I sleep beside you on the sofa. You know I am there. The quiet tap-tap-tap no one else would hear wakens me like a mother aware even in sleep of every movement her child makes. In the mornings I wash you, clear the breathing tube of mucous. I remove the bandages and wait for the blood to stop flowing from the tumours. There are many of them now, a garden of red blossoms around the stoma. I dress you in a clean shirt. I comb your hair. I shave you. I rub your feet with lotion. Feet like the feet of Christ, long and angular and white as if chiselled from marble. You cannot see me although your eyes are open. You cannot speak. But you can hear me. And so I sing to you, the songs you used to play for me. When I ask for my morning kiss you pucker your lips as I bend close and kiss you.
 Next page
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Home |
