A Symphony of Cicadas

Fourteen



Next I knew, we stood inside a hospital, despite my insistence I didn’t want to be here. I glared at Aunt Rose, who only shook her head with a smile.

“We’re not visiting John. I have other plans for us,” she said. She turned and walked down the hallway, and I followed despite the air of suspicion with which I regarded her. Even though I was almost as guilty as she was of ending the life of another, I still held on to a bucket of resentments, faulting Aunt Rose for the pain of all I had lost. I also knew that she could sense this, and accepted it for what it was. Knowing Aunt Rose in life, and now in death, I imagined she didn’t mind the blame I placed on her head. I was talking with her again. That small concession was enough for now.

Aunt Rose turned the corner, and smiled back at me. I could hear the strumming of a guitar echoing down the corridor, young voices chiming in with the stringed notes. We followed the sound to a set of double doors that were flung open wide to allow the music from the inside to fill the hospital wing with song.

On the other side of the doors was a large room with linoleum floors and streamers hanging from the ceiling, uneven as if they had been there for ages. Every inch of the walls was peppered with colorful children’s paintings. Bookshelves with books of every size and shape stood in a corner next to several bean bags, and a few forgotten books lay on the floor nearby. Beside that was a bin of toys and a miniature kitchen, a tiny frying pan on the stove holding a replica of a fried egg.

The back of the room was dark, unused at the moment, making the room appear even larger with so much vacant space. And in the very center under a large light that hung from the ceiling was a man in a white coat, who I assumed to be a doctor, playing his guitar while surrounded by over a dozen children who sang along with him.

I surveyed each child, seeing the various ways they were broken. One child sat on the floor with a blanket wrapped around him, his pale leg peeking out from under the material to reveal how skeletal he was. His face was gaunt and took on a yellowish hue under the fluorescent lights, though his smile made his face shine with joy as he laughed and sang with those around him. A girl sat next to him, her head void of any hair. She wore a nightgown that buttoned at her neck and sleeves down to her wrists. Her feet were bare, and I could see bruises in various shades of purple, green, and yellow against the fair skin of her legs. A boy lay in a wheelchair that reclined enough so that he could remain lying down while still able to view the rest of the kids and the doctor playing the guitar. He didn’t sing, but every now and again his face would break out into a silent laugh. His eyes darted around the room as he took in all the sights and sounds that surrounded him.

I took particular interest in this one child, how he was trapped in a mind and body he had little ability to control, and yet was so happy among the other children. I noticed how he was set apart from the others, the children around him paying him no attention as they paired up with each other and left him out of their circle. Segregation exists even in the grimmest of places, I noted.

Every one of the kids kept a safe distance from the boy, as if his paralyzed body and mind of marbles were catching; only glancing over their shoulders when a baritone laugh would escape from his lungs. All of them did their best to ignore him as their innocent voices rose and fell in the echoing room, all except one young girl who couldn’t take her eyes off of him. I watched from our corner of the room as she got up, her eyes trained on him as she began to tiptoe in his direction. The boy who sat next to her grabbed her hand, shaking his head at her while motioning for her to sit back down next to him. I realized they were paired up in buddies, as younger kids sat next to older kids in a semi-circle around the strumming doctor. This was what must have ensured a sense of order in the room. But the paralyzed boy had no buddy at all, my only explanation being he was neither able to wander off, nor prevent a younger patient from doing so.

The young girl yanked her hand away from her buddy and crept the rest of the way over to the boy on the reclined wheelchair, staring into his face.

“Abby, get back here,” her buddy hissed at her, trying not to disturb the song going on while making himself audible enough for her to hear him and come back. A nurse stepped forward from the back of the room and smiled at Abby’s buddy in the circle, motioning that it was okay and she’d keep an eye on them. Abby’s buddy turned back around in defeat, focusing once again on singing with the other kids and forgetting Abby and the boy reclined in the back of the room.

The paralyzed boy took his gaze from the kids that sang in the room and looked at the girl in front of him. His mouth hung open in a permanent grin, the drool dripping from his lower lip onto a bib that was fastened under his chin. He grunted at her in an awkward laugh, his head flopping around without any form of control while his body lay limp underneath him. Abby reached forward and touched his cheek, causing the boy to grin wider. She laughed at his reaction and he laughed with her.

“I think Jacob likes you, Abby,” the nurse whispered. Abby gave the nurse a shy smile, shrinking away against the wheelchair with her fingers in her mouth. She couldn’t have been more than five years old. She wore a nightgown like many of the other little girls in the room, a much happier thing to wear than the standard hospital gowns the rest of the patients wore in the hospital. Her long blond hair hung against her back, still a bit tangled and messy as if she had just woken up. Part of it was shaved away, and a bright red surgical wound shone out from behind one ear, fastened together with black staples.

“Brain cancer,” Aunt Rose whispered to me when she saw my gaze fall upon Abby’s injured head. I sucked in a sharp breath, cursing a world where young children have to endure diseases that are far too ugly for a life so innocent. “Don’t worry, she’ll make it out okay,” Aunt Rose reassured me. “They managed to cut all of the cancer out of her brain, and her body has responded to the radiation beautifully.” She shook her head with a smile. “The things these humans are capable of, you’d think they were demigods with their abilities in science and healing. Truly miraculous, the things they can do.” She nodded her head towards Jacob. “Now him, that’s a whole other case. There’s nothing left for the doctors to do but wait for him to succumb,” she said, clicking her tongue. “It won’t be long, either,” she added, nodding toward a figure in the back of the room.

A woman stood in the corner, separate from all of us and intent in her observation of Jacob. She glanced over at us and nodded in acknowledgement before focusing her attention back on him. I hadn’t even noticed her before, and now her presence was hard to ignore.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“She’s a family guide, probably an aunt or distant relative. We all have them, a familiar face that greets us in the first moments of the afterlife. Generally we give those who have passed a little solitude before suddenly appearing, allowing you to plot your own course before we come to guide you through the hows and whys of life after living. But with children, we try to be there immediately when they cross over. When that happens depends on the will of the child. For some it’s immediate, as they hold little knowledge on how to hang on to life when their spirit begins to move on. But for others, they fight to cling to life, trying to remain in a world with people they love in hopes they can overcome the inevitable. So those of us called to guide them in this existence just hang around until they pass over. Sometimes the spirit of the living can even see us, like Jacob there,” she said.

Sure enough, I could see Jacob’s head roll every now and then toward the back of the room, his eyes straining as he tried to see the woman who stood in the back. She smiled back at him, but made no other movement at all. I could sense that he recognized her, but he was unable to voice his recognition. Instead he focused the rest of his attention on Abby, who had now mustered up enough courage to hold onto his exposed hand, curling her tiny fingers around his to make up for his inability to return the motion. And her soft, angelic voice seemed to rise above the other voices in the room as she shared a piece of the celebration with the boy who was ignored by everyone else.

When the designated music time ended, all of the children left for their hospital rooms. Many of them shared rooms with other kids, but Jacob’s room only held one bed and a couch in the corner of the room that was made up with a pillow and blanket. Aunt Rose and I melted into the shadows of the room as the nurses worked together to place Jacob in a hospital lift that helped to transfer him from the mobile reclining chair he was in to the hospital bed. A woman, whom I perceived to be his mother, stood next to Jacob’s bed, taking his hand once he was positioned in bed and listened close while a doctor shared a quiet conversation with her. The spirit woman from the music room stood silent in the opposite corner of the room, all of her attention focused on Jacob as he drifted off to sleep despite the commotion of the hospital.

“His condition appears to have improved,” the doctor told the mother while jotting down a few notes on his clipboard. “He was well enough tonight to join the other kids during music hour, and he responded to the sounds.”

“Do you think that means he might be able to come home again?” Jacob’s mother asked, hope radiating from her eyes as she squeezed Jacob’s hand.

“It’s too soon to tell,” he apologized. “We’ll run a few more tests and keep a watchful eye on him for the next several days. But I wouldn’t cancel Hospice just yet. We won’t be out of the woods for a little while. I don’t want to get your hopes up, though it doesn’t hurt to hold on to hope for his sake. However, sometimes I’ve seen patients make miraculous recoveries only to pass away the very next day.” Jacob’s mother winced, and I could see the doctor regretting his words. He started to say something else, and I could hear his brain searching for just the right words. But in the end he just smiled and squeezed her shoulder and then walked away to leave all of us alone.

Underneath the beeping from the monitor next to the bed and the noisy labored air that escaped from Jacob’s mouth as he slept, was the sound of his mother’s gentle weeping as she continued to hold his motionless hand. She was exhausted. I could sense it when I tuned into her, feeling the weight of stress hanging on her chest like a hundred bricks. Her emotions were a mixture of grief, sadness, anger, and a tinge of relief at the notion that everything might be over soon, followed by immense guilt for even thinking that way. And drowning it all was a feeling of fear, afraid for her little boy who might cross over to a place she couldn’t follow, and afraid for herself when her life was void of his presence.

She stayed that way for some time, praying next to him into the early hours of the morning, Please God being her most fervent request to an almighty spirit that felt light years away. It was reminiscent of the prayer breathed from John’s lips a million breaths before in the church where we were to have been married.

Jacob’s mother took a deep breath in an attempt to compose herself. She wiped her eyes and searched her son’s face for any sign of movement that showed he might pull through this. I could see visions of Jacob in her mind, images that appeared to be from a few months earlier when he was full of life and running on his own two feet. I could see the sparks within Jacob’s head, currents of electricity that didn’t quite meet up, making it impossible for him to move on his own accord. The notes on the chart flung out at me as if under a microscope. Pediatric stroke and blood clot were written in dark black ink, followed by scribbles of diagnosis and instructions of care for the nurses.

Jacob remained motionless in sleep, and his mother submitted to the heaviness of her eyes as she curled up on the couch to sleep for a few hours. As she drifted off, the spirit woman in the corner moved forward and stood by Jacob’s bed. She didn’t touch him, but just stood there watching him. Out of the shadows, I could see the striking resemblance she held to both Jacob and his mother. I wanted to ask her how she was related to them, but was aware of how private this moment was. I looked over at Aunt Rose with a look of helplessness, asking her with my eyes if we should leave, if it was okay if we were here. She gave a small nod of affirmation, then turned back to Jacob and the spirit. I did the same.

It wasn’t long before I saw his body glow, the outline of his shape appearing to expand as his spirit grew just bigger than his body. The steady sound of the heart monitor next to him started to beep fast, waking Jacob’s mother with a start. She ran to his side and grabbed his arm. Jacob’s face remained motionless.

“Nurse!” she shouted, grabbing the call button from the side of the bed and punching it with her thumb over and over. “Hang on Jacob, just hang on,” she pleaded with him. “Nurse!”

Two nurses rushed in, moving his mother to the side as they checked his pulse. Jacob’s body began to shake with violent movements. The machine went crazy as his body convulsed, forgetting the paralysis that had left him immobile for the past few months. I could hear the crackling in his brain as he underwent another stroke, his inner voice screaming in agony, images flashing through his mind of things he had seen in his life and the face of the calm spirit woman who stayed next to the bed.

“Code blue,” was heard over the intercom. A crash cart was wheeled in, and they fired it up as a nurse held the paddles. The doctor rushed into the room and barked orders at the nurses who surrounded Jacob’s body. One of the nurses placed a breathing mask over his mouth while another injected a clear substance into a bag of liquid connected by an IV to his arm. Jacob’s body ceased moving and he lay as if sleeping. The heartbeat on the monitor slowed from its rapid rate, moving to a regular beat before slowing even more until it became one thin line with a long beep to match.

“Clear!” the doctor called, and Jacob’s body jumped with the shock of electricity, the thin line jumping with it before settling back into an unresponsive scream. They tried it over and over, Jacob’s mother crying in the corner as she watched in helplessness, the spirit woman waiting near Jacob’s head, and Aunt Rose and me intruding on a moment that didn’t belong to us.

As the chaos swirled around Jacob’s body, I saw his spirit sit up and look around him. Fear was written all over his face as he looked at what was going on to his body and with all the people that rushed around him. But when his gaze settled on the spirit woman, he relaxed into an easy grin. She returned his smile with sheer happiness, the first strong emotion I had seen her express since first noticing her. Taking Jacob’s hand, she helped him to hop down from the bed. He looked down at his legs, held his arms in front of him, and stretched every part of himself now that he was free from his frozen body.

“Welcome home, Jacob,” the spirit woman said as they walked towards us.

Jacob didn’t even notice us as he moved towards us, but he did give one last look over his shoulder as his mother sat crying on the couch, the nurses putting the paddles away while the doctor told her they did everything they could. We all watched as the doctors and nurses left the room to give her a few moments with her son’s body. She stood up, hesitating with her hand over her mouth. She walked forward as if weights were strapped to her feet. She reached Jacob’s body, which seemed very small amid the mess of wires and machines. One by one, she unhooked them all, removing the breathing machine last from his pale face, and holding her hand against his cheek with the gentlest of touches. Jacob’s spirit broke free from the spirit woman’s hand, rushing to be near his mother. He touched her face in the same way she was touching the cheek of his body, and his mother shuddered into tears from a feeling she couldn’t quite place.

“Take care of him, sis,” she whispered, certain she was heard as she relinquished her boy to the sister who had already passed on. Jacob kissed her on the cheek, smiling at his mother with love, and then ran back to his aunt. Together they evaporated from the room as his mother collapsed in a shaking and silent cry with her head on his lifeless chest.

“Where did they go?” I asked Aunt Rose.

“She’s leading him towards Heaven,” she said. I sighed and shook my head at the great irony that we have so many answers about Heaven in life, but knew nothing about it in death.