My Sunshine

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are gray.  You only know dear how much I love you…”  My sister and I sing with each memory we have, falling out of our mouths and landing on what is left of her. Onto her tiny body held straight only by her protruding skeletal frame. The machine, which allows her breath, joins her body and is part of her. This sweet machine, the lifeline that the doctors are going to remove. 

Where did the rest of her go?  This, our Mama, the strong one. Mama who treated our boo-boos and tears. Mama who protected us from drunks, and druggies, and life.  The mama we thought would always be there for us to cling to. The biggest part of our childhood...a speck on the bed.

She is drowning! The pain is quickly erased with the plunge of a syringe, erased along with more of her life breaths.  She’s drowning in the pain, and in the ocean of medicine.  

My tears smear on the hand that I have taken. I hold it to my cheek, holding her in my soul.  Mama!  The same way that she held my hand as a child. In the same way that she had prayed for her children, I pray for her. Unlike the many yeses she received, The Lord says no to me.  

Oh, so sickly humorous, this crazy messed up family!  We surround her bed. She is our lifeline. We here, hoping to prolong the moments before the damn doctors cut our umbilical cord.  Not believing that she would have the audacity to leave us. 

Faces,  just shadows against the white walls.  How we watch her die!  Here we are, my dysfunctional family. All but one. He, in prison with a telephone that links him to this little room.  He, and another brother, innocent of this harm to my soul.  One of them needs to hear what is happening and the other is telling her death out loud.  Faces...and voices.

Dysfunctional enough to avoid the embrace of comfort that the others might give, and functional enough to need it.  

Soon, her eyelids stop their flicker as the machine echoes the piercing clamor of a silent heartbeat. Expectant faces surround the bed. Ears hear her death, and mouths scream her back to us.  We are rewarded with beeps that begin again.

and stop. 

...again, 

and stop.

To my ears, they are the drumbeats of our battle.  Not her battle; her’s is done.

We watch her die. 

“Please don't take my sunshine away”.

A Woman who loves The Lord 
Copyright  2010 Dorene Lang
www.ipenforhim.com