Fading Flowers

It takes more to save a life than it does to take it.

Death is a foreign concept to a lot of people, as it should be. In fact, I do believe it is a foreign concept to all people.

Not only is it foreign, it's also taboo. Especially in a hospital.

In the white-washed walls, the word death is avoided, ironically enough, like death. Doctors seem to sub in, "Not much time left."

So when I hear that, in a quiet tone in Dr. Reynolds' voice, I know it's over. Everything.

The hospital bills, the long nights sleeping in a chair bedside, the short notice surgeries.

It's all over for my little girl.

And I can't believe it.

"You mean..." And then I do the one taboo in hospitals, because almost everything seems to go in these places "She's going to die?" I nearly whisper.

Dr. Reynolds cringes visibly at the word. "Now, Ms. Thuring, it'll be alright-"

I push past him, unwilling to listen to anything less than the truth.

She's going to die.

And there isn't a single thing I can do this time.

For six years, ever since she was born, I had always been able to do something. Find a new hospital, a new doctor, get a new job to pay for another round of bills.

But I had finally hit a complete dead end.

My little girl is going to die.

Dr. Reynolds is following me, and I whirl around, the sudden motion making him stop in his tracks and look into my blazing eyes with shock.

"How long does she have?!" I demand of him. He looks like he just wants to shrink into the wall.

"Ma'am, I don't think..."

I poke him in the chest, firmly at each word. "No, you tell me exactly how long, and you tell me now."

He gulps. "...Two weeks, if we're lucky."

And with that, I turn back around and stalk angrily away, just so that he can't see the tears in my eyes.

~

Three hours finds me in the park we always played in together. Sitting in her favorite swing, the faded memories of sunnier days coming back.

The memories of days when she wasn't just a too small body in a too white bed in a too clean hospital, with too many tubes going into her.

Days when my daughter was sick, but healthy enough to not be in the hospital forever.

She always had this bright, beautiful smile that convinced me lit up the whole world just a little. She always clung onto my hand in crowds in public, a strange sort of shy. She was scared of big crowds yet would walk straight up to people that she didn't know and show them the small birthmark on her cheek shaped like a flower.

Her smile would make everyone smile. I was convinced no one could actually not smile while in her presence.

When a person leaves this world, do they stay here to watch us?

What a silly thought. I was turning into a hospital doctor, through and through, with my "leave this world" substitution.

I always thought my Angeline's light would never go out. She always smiled.

Whether it was on the playground or in a hospital bed.

Would death extinguish her light forever?