Conclusion – Taking the First Breath Last

Room 616
Jessekah had come directly from work, but it was already 8:45pm and visiting hours only lasted for another 15 minutes. In the days since Allen had been admitted, Jessekah’s work days had rarely ended before eight in the evening. On Thursday, though, she had left between 7:30 and 9:30pm for her yoga and then returned to the office afterwards and stayed until well past eleven. She had arrived again that morning at seven, and at seven-thirty that evening when she left to try to make it across town to the hospital before visiting hours were over, she had looked at the pile of work on her desk and realized that both she and her assistant would be spending the weekend there. She had barely eaten in days and had sent one of her assistants to the department store that afternoon to find some under-eye concealer to cover up the dark circles that seemed to be taking permanent residence there.

She did not like this ward of the hospital. It was the ward where the people who would not again walk outside of the hospital were put to quietly take medications out of paper cups that would help them barely feel their last days. She did not like seeing Allen here. But there he was in the bed whether she liked it or not. He was thin, barely there, and ungraciously draped in a hospital gown. Jessekah wondered if he had been that thin in his last days at the office and perhaps she had just not noticed. Perhaps the sense of power associated with his fine suits had caused people to just not really notice how sick he must have gotten.

There was a respirator. It forced the air in and out of his lungs even though he didn’t seem to want to take it in any more. Jessekah wondered if there could be anything less natural than forcing a body that no longer wanted to breath to, in fact, breath.

She felt like she should be more impacted by the way in which Allen already seemed decomposed. As though she should feel a contrast between the powerful man she had known and the man who lay in front of her now. But she didn’t feel like that at all. To her, it seemed like the natural ending for people like Allen. For people like her. There were people in the world for whom the need to drive ahead in a straight line towards something was the most important thing in the world. Allen had been like that. She was like that. The typical diversions that were so often associated with happiness to most people --- a quiet dinner with a loved one, a good movie, five days on a beach with nothing else around – to people like Allen and Jessekah, and even Matt, these things didn’t bring happiness. These things felt like distractions from the thing that truly did make them happy, accomplishment. And there was no shame in that. Everybody found happiness in their own way. There was no shame in finding happiness in a straight line instead of a juicy, full, sphere. She would not apologize for that.

But the way it was ending for Allen, this is the way it would end for her, too. If you lived your life in a line, then the end of the line was as flat as the beginning. She wondered if Allen had any regrets. If he did, she wished he would tell her.

She walked over to the bed and stood there, seemingly forever, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes because the nurse came to warn her that visiting hours were ending. Jessekah shook her head at her own silliness. She’d walked over hoping that Allen would wake up and, like at the end of some movie, share some words of wisdom with her about leading a richer, fuller life. It seemed so insane now that she realized that it’s what she had been waiting for. Life didn’t work like that. At least not for her. Someday she would reach the final pixel on her line, too, and she suspected that the only thing she would say then would be “You know, I think that now I really am ready to just be still for a while.”

In the morning, she was skipping yoga to go to the clinic and end the combative second breathing inside of her. As she stood silently telling Allen goodbye, she covered her belly with her hands to try to feel the pattern of the little life inside of her. How she would have liked to have been back in the hospital nine months later holding a tiny warm body next to her own. But there were still many years for that. And the reality was that Jessekah knew that to hold a baby, you must be very still and breath very evenly in order to keep the child calm. She was neither ready to be still nor able to breath evenly.

It was nine o’clock. Time to head back to the office. She turned and left, listening to the wheezing noise of the respirator behind her.

Room 442
The paramedics had rushed Jenni to the hospital, all the while performing CPR on her. They gotten her breathing again laying on the hard concrete next to the pool, turning her head to the side so that the chlorinated water poured out of her mouth. Lila’s dad had yelled at her to go inside, afraid of what she might see if she stayed on the patio with him and the medics, but as soon as he wasn’t paying attention any more, she had sneaked back out to watch.

Lila’s dad hadn’t wanted to take Lila to the hospital with him, but he didn’t want to leave her alone at the house either. So he packed her into the front seat, still in her bathing suit and big beach towel, and brought her along with him while he frantically called Jenni’s parents and Lila’s mom on his cell phone. They would all meet at the hospital.

At the hospital, a nice nurse found some extra hospital gowns and a pair of shorts from lost and found for Lila to wear. Lila felt like part of an adventure, but she was scared too. What if something happened to Jenni? Jenni was her best friend forever. But Jenni was breathing. They’d gotten her breathing again right there next to the pool. Probably there wasn’t anything to worry about. Lila sat down in the waiting room and watched the television. Later in the afternoon, her mother brought her up a little tray of sandwiches and Jello from the cafeteria. Everybody kept promising Lila that Jenni would be just fine. They were just monitoring her brain activity because when somebody stops breathing for a long time, there can be damage. They promised that Lila could see her friend before she left.

It was almost eight thirty by the time they led Lila back from the waiting room to where Jenni was in her hospital bed. She seemed awake and was talking to her mom. She smiled as soon as Lila walked in and opened her arms up to hug her best friend. Lila rushed across the room and climbed on to the bed to hug Jenni. “What happened? You were fine and then I came down to look at you underwater and you weren’t breathing. I was so scared,” Lila said, still hugging Jenni.

“I don’t know,” Jenni said, still hugging back, “I think maybe that we’d been in the sun so long and maybe I was just sleepy? I’m okay, Lila.”

“Mrs. Smithton, can I just get a moment with you and your husband outside to go over a few things before we release Jenni?” The doctor was a kind looking, middle-aged woman who seemed like she was having a long night in the emergency room.

“Of course you can,” said Jenni’s mom, “Lila, will you stay here with Jenni while we’re taking care of this? You can ride back in the car with us if the two of you want to stay together.”

Lila just smiled and hugged her friend as the adults left the room. As soon as they were gone, Jenni started whispering.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what was wrong with me. We were just underwater and all of a sudden I started wondering what it had felt like for her when we dumped her into the well. I’m so sorry. I know we need to keep it a secret. Just, the next thing I remember is being in the ambulance and all the loud noises. I know. I know it needs to be out secret.”

Lila snuggled closer. “You’ll be okay, Jenni. Once school starts, you’ll be so busy you won’t even think about it any more. It won’t even be a secret, just some thing we did a long time ago that we don’t even remember, you know?”

“I know, Lila. Best friends forever?”

“Best friends forever, Jenni. I swear it. Nobody will ever take our place.”

Room 489
Rex Jr. was somewhere else when he woke up. He was back in a hospital room just like the one he had been in the last time he had had an asthma attack. But this time, he couldn’t hear his parents arguing outside of the door. He couldn’t hear them at all. He looked around the room and realized that he was absolutely alone in the room. Nobody else was there.

Weird, thought Rex Jr. Who leaves a seven-year-old kid alone in a hospital room? What if he’d stopped breathing? Were there things hooked up to him that would have let the doctors know that something was wrong?

He wondered if his mom’s mouth was okay. It had been bleeding really badly. And was his dad stuck in a jail somewhere? If his dad was in a jail, did that mean he was going to have to go and stay at Mr. Nellis’ house? If he did have to go to stay at Mr. Nellis’ house, would his mom let him stop and get his Dallas Cowboys comforter and his Lord of the Rings backpack first? And would Mr. Nellis take him to football practice? Would he be allowed to go to football practice? The last time he had had an asthma attack, they’d told him he wasn’t allowed to play football for over a week. His dad had made him get back on the field three days later though. His dad had said he needed to be tough.

Rex Jr. wished that somebody would come in and tell him what was going on. Had the even finished the football game?

Rex looked around for a clock. There was a normal clock on the wall, but he still didn’t know how to tell time with the big hand and the little hand, but on the table by the bed, somebody had left a digital watch. He wondered if it was the doctor's? Maybe it was Mr. Nellis’ watch? It was after eight o’clock. He must have been here sleeping all afternoon and part of the evening. He didn’t remember anything. Had his attack been really bad? Maybe all that humidity his dad was talking about had made it worse.

There was a button next to his bed. A big red button. Rex Jr. knew that you probably shouldn’t push big red buttons. In all of the spaceship movies he’d ever seen, the big red button was the one that made the ship self destruct, but maybe if he pushed it somebody would notice he was here and tell him what was going on. So he pushed it.

A few minutes later, a friendly looking nurse came in. “Well hello there. If it isn’t our little touchdown star finally waking up. You thirsty sweetheart? Hungry? You done slept through dinner, but I can dig a little something up for you.”

“Thirsty,” Rex Jr. responded, because he was.

The nurse came over to his bed and started pouring water from a plastic beige pitcher into a matching plastic beige cup. “You had quite a day there, tike,” she said.

“Is my dad in jail?” Rex Jr. wanted to know.

The nurse looked at him, a little surprised that he had asked, but after her surprise wore off, she realize she’d seen stranger things from kids before.

“I do believe so, tike. The police were here talking to your mama, and they told her he probably wouldn’t get released until tomorrow.”

“Where’s my mom now?” Rex asked.

“Well, she’s been here all day waiting for you to wake up! She wouldn’t even let us move her to another room to work on that cut on her face. She had to run home about an hour ago to make dinner for your brothers and sisters. She said she’d be back as soon as we called her and let her know you woke up.”

“They’re not my brothers and sisters,” said Rex, “They’re Mr. Nellis’s kids.”

The nurse looked down at Rex. He thought maybe she looked just a little bit sad about something, but he couldn’t tell. “Well, either way, I’m gonna call her right now and tell her that you done woke up. I bet she’ll be here faster than you can count to a thousand. You want the television on while you wait for her?”

Rex nodded. The nurse took the remote, turned on the television and flipped through the channels until she found some sports program that she deemed acceptable for some kid as small as Rex. Then she planted the remote on the table by the bed, gave Rex a pat on the head and went to go call his mom.

Rex pulled the blankets up over his head to make a little cave for himself. Even if nobody came for him, he could survive inside of his cave for as long as he needed to. It was quiet and dark and easy to breath in there.

Room 689
Barry had been in the intensive care unit for four days. The crash, it seemed, had done what the guys had referred to when they stopped by as “serious damage, bro.” The flying shards of class had cut him up pretty badly. He had broken both legs, and arm, a handful of ribs and a collar bone, but fortunately not his neck or his back, which everybody considered a shocking blessing given the twisted position Barry had been laying in when the paramedics found him. The glass had also fortunately missed his eyes and his jugular, seemingly randomly since most of the rest of his body was cut through with glass. The worst thing that had happened, and this was pretty bad, was that a huge shard of glass from the broken windshield of the Jeep had flown across the store and into the apparently non-Teflon balloon exterior of Barry and straight into his left lung. He’d been in surgery for hours while they repaired that left lung as best they could. He’d noticed yesterday, though, that he could only breath very shallowly. When he’d asked the doctor, the doctor had explained that, yes, certainly his lung capacity was now decreased. There wouldn’t be any more mountain climbing for Barry. Then the doctor gave him a look that said that there also better not be any more crack smoking for Barry. But he didn’t say anything. He just made some notes on Barry’s chart and walked out.

Barry looked around his hospital room. His mother was asleep in a chair by the window. She’d been there every single day. He could see the balloons that the guys had brought him, and in the corner was a vase of flowers with a Teddy Bear that Jennifer had brought with her when she came by. She had been the only one to say it, Jennifer had. They were sitting there, and Barry was phasing in and out of sleep and consciousness because of the pain medications. Jennifer had just looked at him and asked, “Barry, why on earth were you smoking that stuff? You have so much potential in front of you to be great. Why would you do that?”

He hadn’t answered. Didn’t have an answer that anybody would understand. They all thought of him as superhuman, not afraid. So he’d just closed his eyes and allowed the pain medication to take him off into a world of clouds and grey tones. When he woke up again, Jennifer was gone. She hadn’t been back since.

His mother hadn’t once mentioned the drugs. He knew that she knew. That it had been in the papers that he’d been high when he crashed into the Seven Eleven. She must be so embarrassed, but, he suspected, she was probably already deep in denial about the whole thing. That was how she worked. Denial was her tool of choice. Or, he guessed, denial was her drug of choice.

It would be months, the doctors had told him, before he was even fifty percent healed. Probably a year from now he’d be back to feeling pretty normal, and he’d need a full time nurse in the meantime. His mother had immediately scoffed at the idea of a full time nurse and announced that Barry would promptly be moving back into his room at his parents’ house and she would take care of her boy. Barry figured that somewhere in there she felt like it was her fault that he had ended up like this, but he didn’t have the energy to explain to her that it wasn’t. That he was who he was, and who he was wasn’t very redeeming.

And so that would be his life. He would move into his childhood bedroom and his mother would bring him meals and change the channel for him, and in a year he’d be almost feeling normal. He’d be broke because the pain medications made it hard for him to focus enough to day trade. He’d be more alone than ever. And where, really, would he go from there? Still jobless, still needing that superhuman charge to try to get him through the fear of doing it on his own, still without anybody to be his support system. Probably fat and out-of-shape from spending most of the year in bed. This was how it would fall out for him. And a year ago, he would have thought that nobody could stop him from proving to them all how superior he really was. Now he would be at everybody’s mercy.

He wished that he could take one last breath into his now-much-reduced lung and just hold it until he stopped breathing altogether. He was ready to escape this life. He’d been ready to escape it for a long time. He pulled whatever air he could in through his narrowly open mouth and then he closed his eyes and held it in for as long as he could.

But like it or not, life demanded that he breath.

Room 425
Little Ally had all but sneaked into the world. Cecily had still been barely able to feel the contractions when they got to the hospital, but they had timed them the best the could, checking how dilated she was all of the time. In the middle of all of this, Cecily had felt something that she couldn’t explain, but she knew it was Little Ally making her way out. And suddenly, there was massive chaos around her. Doctors and nurses rushing, Brandt yelling breathing patterns at her while he fired up the camcorder. She had never wanted to record the birth on film. What woman wants to see her body being taken over by another like that? But Brandt had insisted, and she hadn’t argued. And now the red “recording” dot of the camera was right up in her face.

It was one of the shortest deliveries on record. Little Ally, as usual, had decided that it was time and then just done it. It was almost as though she just jumped and slid right out. Cecily hadn’t been given an epidural since she was having so many problems even identifying the contractions, but even without the pain killers, she could barely feel herself delivering Little Ally.

But what she did feel was an incredible sense of relief once Little Ally wasn’t in her body any more. Like she had been freed from this thing that put a fist around her vocal cords and drank up all of her tears and spent all day kicking at the little black ball of sadness in her stomach. Little Ally slid out of her mother and took a huge first breath, trying to steal all of the air in the room. Cecily imagined that Little Ally, as selfish as she was, wouldn’t even notice if all of the doctors and nurses and Brandt and Cecily all fell dead from suffocation from having all of the oxygen stolen from them. Little Ally would just demand that they find more air for her to breath immediately.

That was hours ago, and now, wrapped up in a warm, soft robe, Cecily had been left alone to hold her daughter. Little Ally was peacefully nestled into her mother’s arms sleeping. Her tiny pink head and her tiny pink fingers and her tiny pick pajamas were all equally soft, like petals. And Cecily had prayed before they brought her in that having Little Ally actually next to her breast would help her find the feeling of being alive again.

And the oddest thing had happened.

She had.

No, Cecily didn’t feel alive and full of possibility like she had on the mountain top. She still felt like the unbearable weight of the sadness of the world was pushing down on her, driving her deep into the core of the world where she would melt away. She still felt vaporous and like she was floating. But she felt something else, too. She felt the way Little Ally’s tiny little baby breaths matched up with Cecily’s own breaths, and she knew one thing for sure. No matter what happened in Little Ally’s life, no matter how much sadness there was. No matter how hard. No matter how dull. No matter what, Little Ally somewhere in the back of her subconscious would have this moment. A moment where it was quiet and warm and she was held in safety while she breathed in pattern with the place from where she came. She would have an origin. And Cecily had once had an origin that she began to feel again in that moment. And maybe, because after those first hours of coming into the world, there would always be more sadness than happiness, always be more work than play, always be more alone than connected, maybe the point was to appreciate the moment of origin more than anything else.

Little Ally breathed quietly through her mouth. She had probably taken less than a hundred thousand breaths in her life so far. But they were the most important hundred thousand. They were the hundred thousand original breaths. The ones before you started counting breaths.