Long Walk Home

A narrative essay about loss.

 

Long Walk Home

I walk through the glass doors of the building. They spin slowly, mocking the speed of my fleeting thoughts. When the phone rang I jumped up like a bullet from a gun. I don’t even remember the drive here; only that I had to get here fast, for her. The building is filled with bodies, some cloaked in white, others in a pale blue. I cannot make out their faces, they are only bodies, and are in my way.

                The only sounds I hear are my echoing footsteps on the cold tile floor, as white as the painted walls and florescent lights. The smell of the air fills my nostrils and I choke it back out. The sterility wrenches in my stomach, it is a smell that I know too well. I hurry past the receptionist’s desk, her body rises to stop me but I push through

                Many doors fill the hallways, each one painted gray. The doors which are closed have visitors behind them. Relatives and friends, feigning hope and happiness even when they know there is no chance. I have done this many times for her, but hope has no home in this wing. The open doors are what really interest me. There are curtains drawn, separating each bed from the other so that the patient need not see the horrors and signs of death next to them and be reminded of their own inevitable end. The only visitors these poor few had were the men in white, and perhaps a woman carrying a tray which would not be touched.

                I bustle further down the hallway, noticing the cracks in the walls. They seem to get bigger, deeper; the walls crumbling right before my eyes. I become more aware of the deafening silence as I grow nearer to her room. Her door is wide open. It is when I walk through the doorframe that my senses fail me. For a moment I could not see the whiteness of the light, could not hear the sound of my racing heartbeat or the busy feet in the distance, could not smell, could not taste, could not feel my own body. I only felt emptiness.

                Then it all came rushing back, like artillery exploding all at once. The sound of many voices and beeping machines suddenly rang out in my ear. The smell of my sterile surroundings one more returned. Then came the sight. There was a woman in blue, stripping the bedding from a familiar mattress while a doctor stood at the foot and scribbled on his notepad. Feeling then returned to me. I could feel my heart shattering to pieces inside my chest. Loneliness crawled its way up my throat and settle in my esophagus; keeping me from breathing. I didn’t need to question where she was. I knew. She was gone for so long already and I had thought that I’d come to terms. Yet the sense of finite loss still crushes me just the same. The salty taste of tears makes my mouth dry and words fail me.

                “Mr. Stein, your wife has succumbed to the coma. I’m sorry for your loss.” His empty words give me not grievance but comfort. Angela has gone home, back to where we weren’t wanted all those years ago. She’s not really gone; just a few paces in front of me.