I Wasn't Expecting That • {r. m. l}

7.5

Watch video above - beautiful but sad.

•

When the nurses they came
Said, "It's come back again"
I wasn't expecting that

(27 years later)

Ella

It started out as a mere pain in my chest a few times a day, I had to sit down and take a moment when I felt it but I generally had to do that anyway a few times a day. Being old wasn't that easy. I think that's why it didn't seem like a big deal to me, most seventy five year olds have aches and pains now and then. Growing old is sad. When you look in the mirror and you don't see the youthful person you had once been, instead there were wrinkles and signs of age. Getting weaker is hard too. When I was seventeen I ran a marathon, then I could barely walk around the block.

But I had a good life, that's what mattered, I guess.

A few days after it started, the pain got worse. I had to stop chopping the potatoes and bend over, my hand over my chest. Then it was all I could manage to let out a strangled scream. Rocky came to me as fast as he could, which wasn't actually that fast. Not anymore.

What scared me most was how it all felt familiar. The pain, Rocky wrapping his arms around me and then leading me out to the car. The tests and the poker face of the doctor. And then sitting in the white room with him sitting in front of us, looking at me solemnly.

"I've read your files." The first words he uttered made me shiver. I knew why it felt the same. I subconsciously knew what was happening, maybe Rocky did too, his hand tightened around mine. I looked down at them, our hands, entwined like they always had been but not the thin, pretty hands of children anymore. Wrinkled old hands, that had experienced so many years of work and life it was unbelievable.

"This time it's terminal."

I didn't cry at his words, not like last time even though this was worst. I closed my eyes, feeling a rush of emotion. Rocky tensed and I looked over to him, his eyes glossy.

"There's got to be some way to help her!"

"I'm sorry, Mr L-"

"There's got to be something!" Rocky snapped. His pain was worse to me than mine. "Please."

"Rocky." My voice was low and pleading. He looked at me. I smiled. "It's okay. It's not his fault. It's not anybody's."

Rocky put his hand over his eyes and sniffed loudly before putting it on the side of the chair, grasping it tightly. "How long?" He seemed pained to even ask the question and that's when my eyes became wet with sadness.

The doctor sighed and looked down. "I can't give you an exact amount of time. I'd say about four to six weeks at the most."

A tear fell from my husbands eyes. The doctor showed sadness and empathy. What a hard job to tell people when they would die.

"I will tell you, spend it all with you're family. Time is the most precious thing in the world." I nodded slowly.

"Will she have to come into the hospital?"

"I think so. Not yet though."

The drive home was completely silent. My thoughts were occupied. It's an odd feeling, to have a limit put to your life and know when you're going to die. Scary that you know the amount of one you have left because surely it's a waste if you don't spend it wisely. I felt practically numb for a while but then we turned onto the street we had lived on for fifty years and I was overcome with despair.