There were two whole slices and one half eaten slice in the
still open pizza box. The cheese was
congealed in the way that cold pizza typically morphs. I stared at those slices of pizza as if they
were the aurora
borealis. So mesmerized was I,
that now 17 years later, I can still see those pizza slices.
At the same time as I was meditating on pizza, Dr. Parker was
telling me that my two year old who lay in the next room being air bagged,
would not live until morning. Perhaps,
this is why I chose to focus on cold pizza.
I could see the white-coated doctor’s mouth moving, but I
couldn’t really hear her. She could not
possibly be uttering the words that I thought I was hearing. Not possible.
Focus on the pizza.
She said to be sure and summon all my children to the
hospital, as soon as possible so that they could say goodbye. She was
crying. Shep and I weren’t crying yet.
We had years of crying ahead of us. Why
start now, when instead, I could keep staring at the pizza and leaving this
room in every possible metaphysical way?
We stood and walked into the room where my baby was
dying. How did we walk? I suppose we walked in the same way that a prisoner, taking
his final steps down death row, finds the strength or the rote memorization to
put one foot in front of another when every bodily fiber is screaming
“STOP!” It is like walking into the
cauldrons of hell, knowing clearly how much agony lies ahead in the burning
flames.
We had no choice. We walked on. We stood at the bedside sobbing, begging,
pleading with those trying hard to keep my baby alive, to keep on trying. They
did not look back. They never met my eyes. They knew it was hopeless. They knew
hell was waiting anxiously for us and hopefully, that heaven had already
embraced my dearest child.
So sometimes, even today, why this very morning in fact, I
end up back in the “pizza room.” It can often happen willy-nilly with no rhyme
nor reason. Likely, it happened this morning, because this day, was the last
day of my life as I knew it. Tomorrow, begins the death remembrance as the day
of the drowning. The panic begins tomorrow morning and resonates through every
fiber of my being. Then it ends at 6 am
the next day. I begin to breathe
again. It is done.
When I unconsciously and randomly enter the “pizza room” the
door slams and locks. My heart pounds and I beg to get out, but it’s
hopeless. I am stuck there now and no
way to get out no matter how hard I try.
I have to stay until I am done. When I get out, I am usually stunned,
but I do get out and look at the brightness of the sun and the blueness of the sky,
or the peace of the night and the shining of the moon and know that I am still
here, but he is gone. The pizza
remains.
May 2, 2012
