Living

I am dying. With each breath I take, Death is one step closer to knocking at my door. One day soon, any day soon, I could be gone. They say it will be painless and I will just drift away, but I know that death could never be painless. Even if I don’t not feel the stab of a knife being forced into my heart, I already feel the pain of loss that everyone else will feel after I have gone.

I am not scared of Death. Why should I be? Death is a certainty in life – arguably the one and only certainty in life – and if I fear Death then I fear Life, because Life can never withstand the final battle against Death.

*****

The echoing sound of a voice calling my name touches my ears. I reach out into the darkness in search of my clock. Luminous green flashes as I hit a button, my eyes slowly adjust to see the glowing numbers reading five-thirty. I grumble at the thought of getting out of bed at such a time in the morning, imagining the people so blessed to sleep in until after sunrise. Mum continues to call my name. I give in. Dragging myself from underneath the depths of the blankets and pillows that I am immersed in, I place my two bare feet on the cream-carpeted floor and wait. I wait for the voice of my mother calling my name again, giving me the signal to move from my frozen position and head to the shower, and surely enough seconds later I hear it. I drag my worn self unwillingly to the shower and alert the higher authority that I am awake.

I think about the day ahead. I will leave the house at approximately 7 AM and proceed on the one-and-a-half hour car journey that takes me to the Hampshire Music School where I will spend three hours in music practise, an hour in musical theory and three hours in academic lessons. My instrument is the harp; without music I am a silent voice. I remember the first time I was allowed to touch my grandmother’s beautiful, neglected harp. She told me I had to be the best before I could come within five metres of it; that became my incentive. When I was six I started having lessons with Mrs Jenson, who lived down the road; she taught me the foundations of what I know. My mother never paid her a penny, she refused it – I think she enjoyed the company.

Calling my name again, I hear the voice of my mother. The water sprays in my face as I come out of my daydream, reminding me where I am. I switch off the shower and take one step out of the bath. My head feels heavy and I struggle to hold it up. I lift my second leg over the bath. My leg doesn’t appear to reach the blue bath mat that lays outstretched across the wood floor, but instead it falls. My arms fall. Simultaneously all the limbs in my body collapse into the air beneath me. I am completely helpless. My vision blurs and slowly disappears altogether, but not before I see the outline of a familiar figure towering above me.

“Honey, honey. Rebecca honey, can you hear me? Bee? Please look at me, Bee. Please talk to me so I know you’re okay.” The desperation in her voice makes me feel guilty; I can’t do any of those things. I try so hard to move my fingers and tilt my head in her direction and whisper words of comfort to her, but I can’t. I can’t do anything. I can think.

I am okay, aren’t I? I’m just tired. She should have let me have the day off, maybe I passed out. Is this what its like when you pass out? I feel as though I am helplessly constrained to my own thoughts, like I do not physically exist, but I do. I know I do, because I can feel Mum’s warm, trembling hand gripping desperately onto mine. I want to squeeze her hand back, just to let her know I’m okay, but I can’t. In a minute I will wake up and go “ta-da” with jazz hands, everyone will laugh and that will be that. Maybe the jazz hands can wait, because right now I am tired and want to go to sleep, I’ll wake up and this will turn out to be one of those weird, scary dreams you have from time to time.

*****

I open my eyes. It’s dark outside. I shuffle over to where my bedroom door should be and fumble for the light switch. Weird, it isn’t where it should be. I can see a light at the other side of the room, coming from outside. A door? I peer through the rectangular window and what I see shocks me initially, but then I remember. I can see a large desk with two women in blue and white uniforms sat behind it, they are frantically typing away at their computers. A short, stubby man with what seems to be a stethoscope hung around his neck paces down the hallway outside, holding a clipboard, looking down at it, then looking up with searching eyes. He sees me in through the door and smiles, I look away. A woman in a formal grey suit stops at the desk and talks to one of the ladies on reception, I can tell by the expression on her face that what she is asking is of great seriousness; she seems anxious.

I remember. I remember the dream. I remember the dream that wasn’t a dream.

I reach for the handle and slowly ease open the door. The woman in the suit looks up and the anxiousness on her face disappears and is replaced by a warm smile. She laughs, but not in the way she would having just witnessed a slapstick comedy act, or someone having told a funny joke, her laugh was an expression of relief. The lady starts walking towards me. I slam the door shut and lock it; I don’t know what I’m doing. Panic hits me. I’m in hospital. I’m sick. I’m scared, petrified. My head begins to whirl and everything is becoming a blur. My eyes are giving up on me. I am giving up on me. Just as I am loosing consciousness, I see the door to the room open and the anxious woman rush in.

Lights above my head are flashing past me, making me feel dizzy. Everything is so bright, too bright. Echoing voices direct urgent commands to each other. I am being rushed down a corridor. The wheels carrying me rattle beneath.

*****

I want to make a list. I like making lists. Lists organise things into an order. I am going to order my list. I will order my list by the priority that I want to achieve things before I die. I cannot die without writing this list, because before I die I need to live. I am dying. There is no denying it. People pity me, which I do not understand. I will be completely free when I die, so why should I fear Death?

Dr. Amy Watson told me little over two weeks ago. I thought she looked anxious before, but as she sat me down with my mother she looked a nervous wreck. Imagine it. Imagine telling a mother that her daughter had anything between a day and three months to live, four at the most. Imagine looking into the eyes of a sixteen-year-old girl and telling her she wouldn’t live to do any of those things she had dreamed of doing, be any of those people she aspired to be.

But. There is always a but. With me, there is always a but. I am seemingly optimistic, so when someone tells me I am going to die without fulfilling my life-long dream of playing at the Royal Albert Hall I provide them with the reality of my perseverance. So, at the top of my list, number one, I will play my instrument at the Royal Albert Hall, with my father in the audience.

That seems ridiculous. It is ridiculous. My dad has been unheard of for the entire duration of my life. My parents were married for three years, but he didn’t want children. My mother let him figure it out for himself that she was pregnant with me, but it took longer for him to realise than she had hoped. When he eventually worked it out, he was supportive and caring, pulling his weight to make life as easy for her as possible. Then, one day she came home from work to a note and no husband. A little later, divorce papers were filed, and that was that. He chickened out. Until this day, Mum has never told me what was written on that note. Why? – I don’t know. I don’t know if I will ever know.

I have sworn that I will find him. She hasn’t given me his name, but I will find him. She hasn’t told me anything about him, other than the tale of his disappearance, but I swear I will find him. He must hear me play. Every time she thinks of him, I know. I can see it in her eyes how much she misses him; no matter how hard she tries she can never forget. When she thinks of him I know, I hear it. She listens to the music, she asks me to play while she sits in the corner of the room, on the window seat, drifting away until I finish the piece. If I play he will listen too, he will hear me. That’s why I have got to play at the Royal Albert Hall, to see him.

*****

The day Dr. Watson told me about my condition and the indefinite outcome of it, I felt nothing. No fear. Death will happen; the only difference with me is that it will happen sooner than for everyone else, and as long as I do all the things I want to do, just like everyone else, then I am okay with death. What is there to fear? Nothing. For the first 24-hours after hearing the news, that is what I believed, that is how I thought.

Mum let me have a lie in the following morning, a very long lie in. My daily routine does not allow me to sleep in past five-thirty on a weekday, but that day she let me sleep on until midday and even turned off my alarm before it had a chance to wake me. So I woke up at twelve-fifteen that next afternoon and wandered downstairs to find my mother baking flapjacks. I watched as she poured extra syrup in, like I do. I was slightly shocked by this as she is the type of mum who refuses to allow her daughter to eat chips, burgers, or anything high in sugar. Whenever I bake flapjacks Mum stares over my shoulder throughout the process and forces me only to use the minimum amount of syrup and nags me if I ever slightly over-do it. I didn’t question it until later when she began making spaghetti and meatballs, pancakes, calzone pizza, Mississippi mud pie, chocolate brownies and waffles – simultaneously.

Realisation that the events of the previous day had affected her to the extreme alerted me that she needed more comfort than I did. Coping with bereavement following the loss of a child would be harder for her than it would be for me letting go. I realised that. She was completely helpless. I thought I was the one without the control, but it was her. I was able to hold on to my life, but when the time came for me to let go she would lack the ability to stop it. She would have to go on living.