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 Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:58 pm
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:02 pm
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•••••♥••••••••••♥••••••••••♥•••••
The steady beeping of respirators and medicinal machines were beginning to meld into one as I followed the doctor eagerly towards my Uncle Malcolm’s permanent room. My heart beat was loud in my ears, almost deafening, beating faster than a timpani drum in a marching band. The doctor weaved his way between the frantic nurses who were answering the erratic alerts from other patients’ machines. I followed one step behind him watching his back with wide tired eyes as we neared his room.
The hospital had called me up at 1am just as I was about to go to sleep when he informed me that my Uncle had relapsed. One step forward, three steps back. Uncle Mal had been fighting his illness for a long time now, he far outlived the days he was given. He was ‘living on borrowed time’ as he would so happily put it. Sure I’d been called plenty of times in the middle of the night by the hospital but this call was different. The nurse who had informed me that I was needed at the hospital had that certain tone of voice that I recognised so fully. It was that solemn apologetic tone they always put on when they inform a family member that their loved one wasn’t going to live through the night. I’d heard many phone calls being made at my time in the hospital and I’d always known that I’d be on the receiving end eventually.
The doctor paused just outside the door he turned toward me with a sullen expression. His mouth moved but my ears didn’t register the words as he spoke them. They were just a jumbled of muted mumbled words as I nodded mechanically. My eyes were glued to the pale blue curtain that was drawn across in an oval motion around the open door. I heard a distinct and raspy cough from within the room and my heart almost stopped. Everything stopped around me as I stood frozen to the spot glaring at the frosted blue curtain which was the only thing separating me from my uncle..
A large withered hand clenched my shoulder reassuringly and snapped me out of my daze. “You should go in.” The words were low and reassuring, almost numb in comparison to what the nurses were like. That was all he said before he turned and walked away down the dull dimly lit hallway. I was expecting the doctor to fully outline what was going to happen to my uncle in his last moments but he didn’t or perhaps he did and that was what he was mumbling about before. To be honest I didn’t want to know anyways. I didn’t want to be told the amount of pain he would be in because of his chest.
I exhaled my long held breath which left me light-headed as I drew back the curtain to reveal my sickly looking uncle. His face was gaunt and his eyes were surrounded by dark shadows making his eyes look hollowed out. His normally sleek hair sat in loose messy curls around his face and his typically camouflage green eyes were a dark onyx. An oxygen respirator was pulled over his face and there was one tube in each arm, one I assumed was fluids and the other morphine. Long plastic covered wires poked out from underneath his hospital gown and were attached to one of three machines he had beside him.
His clouded eyes peered over at me and a smile etched its way over his pale features. His hand clasped a small button device I assumed was the device controlling the morphine. I watched as his finger lightly pressed the button before he placed it down gently and removed the oxygen mask. He forced himself to sit up with shaky thin arms before he was overcome by a coughing fit. I raced over to his side and rubbed his back lightly, completely stuck on what I could do to help. Grabbing a tissue he hacked up a few droplets of deep red blood. Squishing it in his hand hoping to hide it he glanced at me with a lazy warm smile.
“Hey Kiddo,” His voice sounded no better than his cough. It was wheezy and strained and just hearing it made my chest tighten.
“Hey Uncle Mal,” I replied forcing a smile. I felt the corner of my mouth quiver as he reached up and ruffled my messy bed hair which looked much like his did. My eyebrow knitted together as I smiled worriedly at the frail looking man before me. I held his thin bony hand in my own and we sat in silence before my uncle spoke.
“I’m gunna miss…you kiddo,” he said with a smile.
My throat tightened as I began to panic a little at the thought of Uncle Mal leaving me. “No, no you shouldn’t..Can’t…say that!” my voice cracked midsentence as I felt my eyes well up with salty tears.
He chuckled lightly but it sounded more like broken laughter to my ears as he coughed and wheezed afterwards. More blood dotted the tissue he was gripping in his other hand. “Come on, I don’t want my last…moments with you to be a solemn occasion.”
I nodded as the tears finally spilled from my eyes and I sniffed trying to supress the sobs. How could they not be solemn? I can’t smile and pretend like this wasn’t the last time I’d see him. I couldn’t pretend that everything was going to be okay when I knew it wouldn’t be. He was practically the only family I had that still loved me and soon I would be alone. Without the man who raised me.
Uncle Malcolm ruffled my hair again with a nostalgic expression on his hollowed features. His eyes trained on his hand as if committing the feeling to memory or perhaps more savouring the feeling of human interaction. I watched his dark eyes before they met mine. I felt my eyes begin to well up again as a flash of what my uncle used to look like appeared in my mind.
“You seem to fear Death more than I do,” he said softly. “Almost as if you...were the one who was passing and not me...Cheer up though...My death is just another doorway into a new life...I won’t be gone from this world for too long.”
My uncle had a strong belief in reincarnation. That probably isn’t the word he would use though. He’d normally refer to it more as a phrase than anything else. He believed that once someone has died they would be nothing for a moment before they would start a new life as someone else in another time, past, present or future.
“But I won’t know you.” I said dryly, blinking back the tears.
There was a brief silence before my uncle began to shift uncomfortably as he leaned toward the other side of the bed. He groaned audibly before I heard the subtle acoustic sound of vibrating strings. He turned around with a sigh and handed me his violin and his bow with his warm smile.
“How much have you practised that song?” he questioned, his voice was becoming weaker the longer I was there The morphine had masked his pain but also seemed to mask his mind as if he was looking but not seeing. I knew that he was struggling to suppress the coughing as he spoke. “I want to hear how much you’ve improved.”
“You’ll be mighty impressed.” I smiled lightly and took the violin in my shaky hands.
Once a month Uncle Mal would give me the task to learn and perform a song on his violin purely for his enjoyment. Whatever the melody, no matter if it was quick or slow, no matter if it was hard or easy, I learnt how to play it. This month I was requested to play a song he had heard from a movie he had watched that past month. The Great Gatsby. He loved the book and made sure I’d read it before we went to see it together. The song he wanted me to learn for him was by a female artist, Lana Del Ray, who sang the song with such passion it had given both me and my uncle the chills. I practised every day, twice a day for a month until I knew I could play it with ease.
I stood at the foot of the bed and placed the violin delicately under my chin and readied the bow on the violin. I searched my uncles’ features making sure he was alert before letting out a sigh before my fingers and arm began to move rhythmically.
Recognition flushed over his pale face as the music drifted to his ears. I saw his face light up at the sound as he watched me in awe as the song continued without a single mistake. As I reached the chorus of the song I saw from the corner of my vision the pale blue curtain draw back and reveal a few nurses who were watching me intently. Their faces immediately became teary, one covered her mouth trying to stop her lips from quivering. I focused on the violins even strokes before looking towards my uncle whose eyes were slowly closing. He breathed in a deep breath, to my relief, and listened. I could only imagine that he was picturing Daisy and Gatsby being together in a happier ending then again by his expression he might have been thinking of something entirely different or maybe he was just genuinely listening to me.
As I neared the middle of the song I’d noticed quite a crowd forming at the doorway, the first nurses were standing just inside the doorway with a few others, all were listening to me. My uncle didn’t seem to notice them as his eyes fluttered open to look at me. He smiled at me proudly and for that brief second I recognised the old Malcolm. The haze in his eyes was all but gone leaving them a stunning dark green that were alight with pride and awe.
“I love you,” he mouthed to me. “I’ll miss you.”
In that single moment I knew that he was going. The monitors were registering irregularly slow heart patterns. The beeping was becoming slower and slower but I couldn’t bring myself to stop playing. I had to finish the song. He had to hear the whole thing before he was gone.
My eyes welled up and my heart began to race as I tried to finish the song without speeding it up any faster that I already had. He just had to hear the final bit. His eyes were almost closed and the beeps were so distanced the machine was going frantic. The final part of the song was drawing close as I continued to move the bow across the strings. A nurse who was watching hurried over to my uncle and hovered over him unsure what to do knowing that there was nothing she could do. The heart monitor stopped beeping giving off a constant droning sound which sounded over my uncles’ violin. The sudden sound made me scratch the violin to a stop as I stared at the now lifeless man in front of me. My legs gave way as I dropped to the floor with a thud and cried at the foot of the bed.
I heard the flick of the monitor then the nurse usher everyone out the room that had come to see what the music was. I was left alone in the dark room with my uncle as I wept on the floor with my fingers gripping the violin until the whites of my knuckles showing.
“He didn’t hear the whole song.”
•••••♥••••••••••♥••••••••••♥•••••
╔═══╗ ♪
║███║ ♫
║ (●) ♫ View The Song Here
╚═══╝♪♪ |
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