It felt like a scene out of some futuristic Sci-Fi movie. I tried everything I could to focus all of my attention on her, but my eyes couldn't keep from wandering around the white-washed operating room. Above us were several sets of large circular halogen lights, extending down from the ceiling like spiders and intruding into our lives with intense brightness and heat. Throughout the room, machines stood guard, looming over us with twisted coils of wire. Their hums, drips, whirrs, and beeps were amongst the many foreign sounds that filled the room...and possessed my mind.
Movement was fast-paced and all around us. Faceless figures scurried here and there, quickly preparing for the procedure that I had dreaded since the moment we stepped foot in place of anguish and misery. Dressed in blues and whites, they spoke to each other with little tone or expression, every word echoing off the walls around us, but sounding blurry to my over-stimulated senses.
In that very moment, a still frame picture was forever burned into my memory. Looking down, I see my wife's body, pale and vulnerable, like a small lamb laid out for slaughter. How I wish I could save her from this torment; I'd switch places with her in a heartbeat...but just like that, the image is erased from my vision as a curtain is drawn over her torso, inhibiting the view I once had. I feel my heart speeding up and the nerves in my brain pushing against the bone of my skull. I grit my teeth because I think my head might explode. My attention turns back towards her. Her eyes are shut, so I squeeze her hand softly. She responds in turn, and I it soothes me for a moment to know that we are together in silent touch. I lean down and whisper soft words in her ear. "I love you," and "I am by your side," even though part of me feels like I am not even in the room.
I close my eyes and several tears fall down my cheek. I drift back to a conversation we had several months prior. That night, my wife described to me in detail how delivering a baby would be the best experience we ever shared together, not some preplanned surgical operation like many tend to be. She said that she would do everything in her power to avoid making it an experience like that. I could tell that she longed to bring her baby into the world naturally. My wife doesn't ask for much, and I knew as she spoke those words, that this was truly important to her.
As I sat there in the operating room holding her hand and weeping, I watched before my eyes the complete opposite what my wife had hoped for in a delivery. This wasn't at all how she had described it to me that night as we laid in bed, and I knew that within her inner core, hidden from all the world to see, she was disappointed. It hurt me so much, recalling this memory, almost more than the thought of what was occurring on the other side of the sheet, just inches from our hands.
I know this is all past news now, but the pain within me hasn't subsided at all. I still look at my beautiful wife daily, and inside me, I suffer for her.
No comments:
Post a Comment