In the beginning of darkness

I find myself in this dark place where everything outside seems either darker than inside or alien, as if who I am is no longer the person I knew not long ago.

Two and a half years ago I knelt on the bed of a person who I knew, at least in some inner way, was close to the end 0f her life. It was a heartbreaking knowledge and as I looked in her eyes, I think I saw that she knew too, but she was not as bothered by the awareness of death as I.

I had just lifted her off the floor and quite literally pulled her onto the bed I then knelt on. Her husband and daughter where there too, and the three of us struggled to not let her, and each other see our individual pain. But I knew we failed in hiding what was clearly written on our faces and the quavering our words.

We attempted to convince her to eat as if even a slight bit of nourishment could somehow stave off the inevitable. I held her up in a sitting position while she worked at swallowing a small spoonful of soup. An effort she obviously made for us and not herself.

When we accepted her inability to eat, I think none of us were yet ready to accept what else was happening. As I tried to help her get into a more comfortable position, with my arms around her, struggling to balance us both on the soft mattress, she had a heart attack. Pain crumbled her face as she gasped from its intensity.

"Indigestion," we thought and announced. When it passed she groaned and said softly, in a voice that seemed torn by the brief experience, "That was awful."

I still knelt there watching her as if I could do something if only I could understand what that something might be. Yet after it was decided that all she needed was to rest, sleep and she would be fine, I helped her to lay down, and then moved off the bed.

Although I know her passing was not something anyone could have prevented, I did then and do now believe I should have done more. I think that was when a small hole of darkness burst into existence that late summer afternoon, burrowed into my soul where it's sat and slowly grew as I watched people I cared about, people I loved fall like the leaves of late autumn burying me in a grief almost more tangible then the air I breathed.