RELIGION [H.S.] [A.U.]

one

River - Leon Bridges (*)

TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️ MENTION OF SUICIDE
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Ezra ~
Flashback ~
November ~ Senior Year of High school

Hospitals used to give me hope.

Now they make me feel dismal. Sad. Gloomy. You name it.

I remember this one time when I was growing up, my dad was working on one of our cars. He was always a handy man. I can't remember what it was he said he was working on under that hood, but something happened and he accidentally sliced his arm open on something inside the engine.

And when I say sliced, I mean literally. Still to this day, at eighteen years old, the memory of all that blood makes me feel sick.

Anyway, my dad came inside to where my mom and I were cooking dinner and told us we had to go to the hospital. I was only nine at the time, so I was terrified out of my mind that my dad was going to die.

But his exact words I will never forget because of the way they made me go from petrified to relaxed in seconds.

All he told me was, "Don't worry Ezzy, they made hospitals for a reason. It's a safe haven, those people save lives. I'll be okay."

And that's all it took for me to believe every word he said. I had hope and I trusted that whoever was assigned to help my dad when we showed up would take perfect care of him. And all would be well.

I no longer have that hope or trust in these places. Yes, I know that these doctors and nurses save lives. But they couldn't save my moms life.

For three years she'd been fighting the cancer she was cursed with. The cancer she didn't deserve.

Stage four lung cancer, passed down from her father. It killed her. And no one could prevent it.

Gina Michaels was a strong woman, she raised me so well. So did Luke Michaels, my dad. Both of my parents were strong. So when we first heard a few years ago that she was diagnosed, we worried but not for too long. Because for those first two years she fought it so well. And for eleven months after that we thought it was gone for good.

Until it wasn't.

My mom got really sick one night about a year ago. Horrible chest pains, coughing hysterically, spitting up blood.

I was old enough to understand but not old enough to stomach the feeling I got watching her look so close to dying. And me being helpless other than calling both an ambulance and my dad.

That night we found out it was back, but not only that it was worse than ever before. Like I said, stage four.

We tried everything, absolutely everything the doctor recommended. Chemo, radiation, the most expensive treatment possible because my dad didn't care if we went broke. He just wanted her to be okay.

For months and months she continued to fight. To hold on. Even when the doctors told us she only had a couple months left to live. She defied them, and death itself. She refused to give up.

But as we neared the end of that sixth, consecutive, horrible month of torture, and I walked quietly into her hospital room, my delicate ears overheard my dad telling her it was okay if she wanted to let go. He told her she'd been fighting for too long, and she deserved a break. She technically couldn't hear him being that she was in a deep sleep, but the way she finally ended the fight the next morning told me she somehow did hear it.

The absolute emotionless expression my dad withheld on his face when he woke me up to tell me she died that next morning will forever be seared into my brain.