Death is not beautiful, or romantic, or poetic. She taught me that, and shows me still. Her eyes had a light in them that was hollow but spilling over with beauty and truth- though her truth is not beautiful either. Death is ugly, indifferent and wretched, especially here. Under the bright lights and tile ceiling, each detail of her fading life is illuminated cruelly.
Each time I come she has slipped away a little more, and it is harder to call her back. Someday she will not answer. The sheets are stained with blood sometimes, or crisp and white against the metal cot. Her hands grow paler too, striving to match the bedding they rest on. The nurses who come to check her, clean the blood and fill the tubes, they know the truth. Some never meet our eyes, others, wise from years of this, offer what they may. They tell me to speak to her, to make her eat. I am best at that, they say. Return her, remind her of our world.
For a half hour each day my friend is alive again, and famished. It is not any food she craves, but words. I spill to her my secrets, tell her how warm the bricks are against my skin when the sun sets and makes them glow. She knows everyone at my school, though she's never met them. Her eyes are bright when I speak about the little things she misses, the changes outside her confining walls. My friend longs to live, clings to what little life she has, and it is not enough. There is no calendar in her room, because it reminds her only of what there is to lose. The new year was bittersweet, a benchmark that she lived past and a question: will there be another?
She says not to lie to her, she cannot stand lies. It is because in her world, there is no time for lies. To her, truth is mor valuable than gold. When she speaks, her words are chosen, precious, numbered. There is a force behind them I never can attain. How many words does she have left? How many can she really afford to waste? Each syllable is lit by her eyes, those eyes that will not fade until her heart gives in. Is it her soul that casts that light, or something else? Dying, she radiates beauty through those eyes while her body wastes away.
In the disinfectent stench of the hospital ward, flowers are a welcome change. How many flowers! Enough for a greenhouse, but of course, because she will never see them blooming in the dirt again. I lend her my eyes and my ears, my heart too, but it is never enough. She has an emptiness within that we can never fill, not with tears or love or lies. She is so afraid, she says, of being alone. She does not want to cross that line without a guiding hand. I would go with her if I could. She knows that time is limited, but there is no respite, no answer. The scar on her chest will swallow her up, and we cannot say what comes after that final departure.
Why? She is frantic sometimes, pleading for some clue. I look at her, so fragile, so full of life that has no time to spend, and wonder too why she must die. Could she have done anything so bad? Is there justice here, in her slow death? There will be no more fairytales in her story, yet I wait for my magic wand. It is only by the light of those illuminating eyes that I realize I already have my wand. With words, anecdotes and recollections, I can bring her some of the life she desires. The gift I want to give the most is locked away too far to reach, so I must do my best. For her.
"I'm going to die," she tells me, and in her voice is an acceptance I have never heard before.
"Yes," Why is it me to cry, when she loses more in the end? I hold her then, careful of so many tubes and wires, wondering at her strength. Her body has become skin upon bones, held together through no fault of her own, but inside her soul she is a champion warrior. "Yes," I say, "but you're a survivor."
In ten years, will I remember the day of her death? Will my heart be warmed by that burning radiance that pours out from her eyes? I hope so. Before this next decade has run its course, she will be beneath a layer of crumbling soil and grass, where I can no longer hold her hand. But I will have my memories, and the strength she taught me. I will fight my battles as she says to, as a survivor. She has no happy ending. There are no happy endings. So in the face of the ugliness of death, I can hold the beauty of life. I will live for her, so that she may live on within my soul. She will lend me the light in her eyes.
**
My friend wishes to go nameless, as she suffers from a terminal illness.
