Ten Months
To See in the Dark
I can’t feel my legs. There is a vast nothingness beneath my hipbones. The doctors say that’s to be expected. They try to say it reassuringly, but I nearly choke on their pity as it floods the room like poisonous gas.
***
I hate hospitals. I hate the oatmeal-coloured floors and marshmallow shade of the walls. Dad’s once sun kissed skin is almost a mirror to them now. He has missed spending summer days with the ocean’s waves, and I have missed seeing him smile like it doesn’t take all of his energy just to make it reach his eyes.
The hospital bed looks more like a prison cell than a refuge when he lies there, head turned to the window, eyes focused on clouds that slip away from him like the months the doctors prepared him for. It occurs to me that maybe he’d rather be anywhere but here, even embraced in death’s not so soft touch, but he stays. He stays for us.
***
When they looked at me and said the words Spinal Cord Cancer all those months ago I thought they’d been referring to him. A shiver went through me none the less. Those words had always been the demon that tore through my life, like a knife cutting stitches. But when I was the one sitting in the doctor’s room, those words were no longer about dad, but me.
“You are very unlikely to survive Spinal Metastatic Disease,” I remember them saying but they didn’t need to.
I know, I almost told them. He only made it ten months after he was diagnosed. The words never had a chance of making it past my trembling lips and the tears never had a chance of waiting in my eyes instead of racing each other down my cheeks.
Spinal Cord Cancer. Not expected to live. People always did say Dad and I were strikingly similar. Like father, like daughter.
***
“Come here my little owl.”
I swallow back the wave of nausea that arrives after studying the tubes inserted into his arm. He has turned his gaze away from the open window now and I try not to notice the dark circles under his eyes as I look into them.
“Read to me,” he instructs me, patting the seat closer to his bed. It’s hard not to focus on the way his arm shakes when it never used to.
I open the book beside him. It’s about surfing. Of course, it is. If he can’t feel the sea spray in his sandy blond hair, he’ll imagine he can instead. I begin reading but the more the words pass from my lips, the more I form a vivid image of him riding the waves like the moon itself was guiding him.
I can remember him tipping his head back to the sky and laughing as I fell off my board. I can remember him helping me back up again and pointing out the next big wave. I remember him telling me to move my front foot further forward when I stood up on the board. I remember thinking he was invincible.
Tears run from my eyes like rivers. He is not invincible. He is just a man – even if he has always been my hero.
His hand reaches out to clasp mine as it shakes.
“Darling, listen to me,” he says, and I look up through tears-stained eyes to do just that, even whilst knowing not even his words can make it better this time.
***
The last ten months of my life have been painkillers and flowers and ‘get well soon’ cards. The cards seem more like a sick joke to me than anything else because I won’t get better, and we all know it. No maybes or miracles could save him, so why would they save me?
I feel like I am living in a greenhouse now. I can hardly see the marshmallow walls through all the flowers that are piled on the floor and the bedside table. They’re covering the chairs and the window sill. They’re everywhere. But I can still see out the window and I am grateful for it. A light breeze is tickling the leaves in the tall tree outside as dusk arrives to kiss me goodbye.
I hadn’t realised, back when I used to watch dad stare out the window, that I would one day do the same. I miss the waves too. I miss the feeling of flying.
***
“It’s going to be okay,” he promises me, but his voice doesn’t sound the same as it once did. He never used to sound frail and fragile and feeble. He used to sound fearless.
“Have you ever wondered why I call you little owl?” he asks me. I hadn’t. I’d never cared to question it. It had always been one of those things that just was. Like the way the beach felt like home and the way his arms felt like refuge.
I shake my head. “Why?”
He smiles, as if he’s been waiting to tell me. I can’t help but wish he was telling me at home, over morning porridge, before another day spent in seafoam with the sand between our toes.
“Barn owls are extremely good at seeing in the dark,” he informs me. I frown, unsure what he’s getting at.
“I know things are dark right now,” he murmurs and for once there is no twinkle in his eyes, no lopsided grin balanced on his face. “I know it is hard to see through this darkness, but if anyone can, it’s you. Safety is hard to see, but once your eyes adjust, you will see that it is in sight.”
Another tear slips from my eyes that mirror his sea-green ones. “You are my safety,” I whisper but I can feel my haven slipping away from me even while I grip his hand as tightly as I can, as if it is life itself.
***
I only got an owl tattooed onto my ankle after the world had started to go dark for me again. By then, I had become paralysed and could not feel any pain as the outline of the animal was inked onto my skin.
It’s my mum who reaches across my motionless legs and squeezes my hand this time. “You look pale,” she observes but she is beginning to look like a ghost herself – just like she did five years ago when it was a different hospital room and a different family member trapped on the bed, swallowing pain killers instead of a mouthful of seawater.
“I’m okay,” I whisper but my voice is weak, and I haven’t quite felt this way before. The pain is starting to fade away, but I know it is not in the miracle kind of way.
Her brow furrows when she says, “I’ll be right back sweetheart. I’m just going to talk to the doctor quickly.”
As she walks out the door I have the fleeting concern that that will be the last time I see her. The doctor comes in minutes later, asks me how I feel, checks my vitals before leading my mother into the hallway again. There are muffled voices and when she comes back, eyes bubbling with tears, I know.
My father made it ten months after the diagnosis and so did I. I never really did expect any longer. People always did say Dad and I were strikingly similar. Like father, like daughter.
***
“My darling little owl,” Dad says to me, “when I am gone, don’t forget to fly.”
I’m not sure if I’m still crying or if the world is simply blurry because his breathing is turning shallower, and everything is unsteady without his strong hands to hold the earth together.
“Dad,” I murmur, and it comes out more of a squeak. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if any words will be enough. “Dad?” He doesn’t respond.
His eyes have fluttered closed. Maybe he just needs to rest. He hasn’t gotten much sleep lately. None of us have. “Dad?” my voice is more urgent now. I think about shaking him, but I don’t want to disturb him.
Rushing into the corridor outside, I search for the nurses. They hurry inside the room, sending for the doctor. Mum is by my side in a heartbeat and by Dad’s side a second after that.
“He’s just sleeping, right?” I sound like a small child in that moment. I don’t care. He has to be just sleeping. I can’t cope with anything else.
The hospital staff don’t respond to me as they rush around the room. Equipment begins to beep. Their discussion gets louder and more intense. My heart is beating frantically. I don’t know if his is.
I don’t hear most of what the uniformed people say. I hear the words, “We’re losing him,” and wonder if a part of me is going with him.
Mum is holding me. Or maybe I’m holding her. I don’t know. We cling to each other as he lies motionlessly amidst the commotion.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” Mum is practically chanting the words. I don’t know if she’s saying them to me or herself. All I know is that she’s saying them in the exact way someone says them when everything is the opposite of okay.
***
She says those same words to me now. If I could think straight I might feel déjà vu. I am too weak to. I want to squeeze her hand as hard as she is gripping mine, but my energy has slipped away with the day’s light, and I cannot find the strength to move my fingers.
“It’s okay,” she whispers but she doesn’t sound like she is.
I turn my eyes away from the window, away from the tall tree and the street light that illuminates it.
“I’m scared,” I whisper, and I wonder if he was too. I wonder if I’ll find out soon.
***
The screen shows a flat line. It reminds me of the ocean on a still day. It reminds me of salt water that cannot be surfed. The kind of sea that made Dad give a frustrated sigh and lie on the sand instead.
The doctor and nurses step away from the bed as mum and I half-stumble, half-run to his side. Mum grips his hand, but I can’t. Only minutes ago, he had squeezed my hand back.
Mum whispers thank yous and goodbyes. I can’t. How can I ever explain how much he meant to me? I don’t know how.
Through the tears and the sound of something cracking apart in my chest, I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance to try.
***
She smiles at me – a shaky, sad smile. It reminds me so much of what his looked like in those last days. “It will be okay my darling,” she promises me. “He’ll be waiting for you.”
I hope she is right. My eyelids are growing heavy. They’re so heavy. Nearing unconsciousness already, my head falls to the side, my gaze colliding with the tree outside my window again.
That’s when I see it.
Black eyes. Round face. Folded wings.
The barn owl is perched on the tree branch that stretches towards the window. It tilts its head at me as if asking a question, as if asking me why I am afraid.
A tear rolls down my face. Maybe I am not anymore. I can’t feel my body. There is a vast nothingness everywhere.
It is dark outside and for a moment, when I close my eyes, everything else is dark too. I let myself fall into the blackness. I think I might drown in it, but then I see safety. It comes in the form of his arms outstretched towards me.
He is smiling like he used to, and I am not afraid any longer. I want to fly again.
