This isn't mine but... It felt... Suitable.
One rarely has good memories of a hospital; no fat, no healthy summer days; no pink scraps of dawn; instead, like a hangnail,
the mind catches on the soft hush of disposable hospital shoes covers, the metallic rungs sweeping privacy curtains closed, the shadows of shoulders
slumped, shuddering in grief. My mom tought me to play gin rummy in a hospital. It was the day the doctors stopped my baby brother's heart,
sewed it up, and started it again. We stole the blanket they returned him in, as if we needed a fabric
reminder
of the seconds his heart was still, of the hours we waited,
playing rummy to 1,000 and 1,000 again.
Years later, it's that smell I can't forget: crisp,
medicinal,
even after countless cleanings, the retained scent
of sweat,
tainted with fear. The white blankets, freshly
folded
on the foot of my boyfriend's father's bed. And when I cannot look at his family huddled in shock and sorrow,
adjusting to the verdict of cancer, I look at the blankets, the hospital name stamped in blue, on every single blanket. Mercy. Between the memorized route to the cafeteria, dry erase board so for the next nurse to mark her name, the yellow sad faces to measure pain, how is this compassion, a leniency from God? Show me the grace in tearing holes
in the hearts of six month-old babies? The charity of cancer, eating families away, father by grandfather? Erase the stink of hospital from my nostrils, let my grief be dirty and jagged.
I have no need for mercy.
