Memories In Black & White

The smell of the hospital room floods my mind, the fear, the tense air, the utter sense of death and pain.

It always felt so quiet yet the sounds that filled the air was monitors beeping, charts rustling, doctors voices monotone and empty.

"Say your goodbyes" They told me.

I wouldn't break down in tears, I just held her hand and stayed quiet.

"She'll make it but it won't be easy"

I knew her, she was strong, she hated easy.

"Your daughter can't stay..."

"Visiting hours are over"

"She's only 9"

In those moments I looked at them and maybe it was that desperate look, the fear in my eyes that if I left I'd lose her

Maybe it was their lack of will to argue with a child,

Either way, I slept next to her side night after night, dragging myself to school the next morning and sometimes deciding that my education could wait, she could not.

I walked her inside of our home for the first time in months, her legs were weak

Her mind was already gone, a victim to the narcotics they gave her,

The Painkillers she begged for, pleaded as she said the pain was too great but an addictive mind can make you believe something's there when it's not.

"Go get me my medicine baby" 

My mind knew exactly which was which, whether it was the beginning when I only knew based off the white chalky pills with some red flakes, or the white round ones for sleeping, the small orange ones, the triangular ones. 

I knew the different pills and I fetched as she asked, I just wanted my mom to feel better

The days turned into months and months into years, I went to doctors appointments with her

"Have you been doing your exercises? Have you started working again?" 

She said she was and that she was still in pain, she couldn't get out of bed or sit up straight.

Why was she sitting at her computer for 12 hours straight then? Could she not have a job again?
"It distracts my brain from the pain, don't talk back. Stop being disrespectful"

I just didn't know why she was lying...

I just wanted to help.

It's a neverending battle, it has never stopped, the denial, the lies, but I listened to the few people who cared.

"She's just sick"

"You're wonderful, smart, capable"

"You have a giant heart"

I heard them, I knew my calling, as the next time I walked inside the hospitals I wasn't scared, I watched in awe

Look at the nice nurses, The doctors who care...

I want to help, I want to care.

So I told myself:

"If I can help any single person, I'll help them a hundred times, as long as they want to be helped. If my mom does not want help then the best I can do is help where I'm wanted and my help is needed. If I can help a child not have to endure the abuse or malpractice resulting in this flaw, I'll be there to help, as if it's my own family, my own child, my own mother. Because it would have made a world of difference if someone was there to help me while she went down that dark rabbit hole"