THE DEATH VIGIL

 

THE DEATH VIGIL

In a square room just about big enough to hold a bed, the late afternoon sun tried valiantly to slip in through the half open  blinds.

Images on the mute television reflected on the wall relieving the dreary monotonous paintwork

The figure on the high bed kept safe by the low bars, lay with his eyes closed. Opening his mouth momentarily for the liquid medication the nurse poured down his throat

The machines beeped periodically. A comfort of sorts; recording heartbeat and blood flow. After three days and three night’s vigil I knew the routine now. The medication sent him to a place, I couldn’t reach him.

I don’t think I’m cut out for this, I sighed focusing on the sunken cheekbones almost protruding through the paper thin skin.

  Sometimes he forgot to breathe this old uncle of mine. My ears had grown accustomed to waiting for the ragged shallow expel of air that barely moves his chest cavity.

I felt myself holding my own breath in unison with his. What if one of these times he his lungs just didn’t respond?

The eyelids fluttered. His unfocused eyes stared vacantly. No words passed between us. I’m not even sure he knows I’m here. Or, if he does that he even recognises me, I thought.

It’s been a while. It was my mother’s idea to come. “He was good to us when you were young and his brother, left us,” she’d said bitterly, taking another swig from the bottle of wine that seemed permanently attached to her hand.

I’m going to die,” he said into the silence in a voice deceptively stronger than I expected. How can I respond to that? Fill the air between us with platitude that he will see us all off?  Say we all have to go sometime?

“Your mother sent you,” he wheezed “She still loves me then?”

 His words startled me. What did he mean? My mother loved nobody – not even herself.

The nurse entered on soft padded feet; offering a drink on the end of a squishy foam prong dipped in water. I’m reminded of our Lord on the Cross and the sponge soaked in vinegar. Don’t be stupid, I berate myself. This is an act of humanity. There is no dark intent in the offering.

Thinking of the water cooling his rasping throat I felt my own thirst deepen.  A thirst no water could quench – to know the truth about my mother and father relationship and my birth. Like the man in the bed I closed my eyes.  My mind too exhausted to run through the possibilities again. And yet the need to know gnawed at me relentlessly.

The window blinds rattled startling me.  The watery sun had been replaced by a full moon. Had I slept? I didn’t think so but I must have.

 

Outside the room door the hospital corridor was bereft of sound.

Quickly I roused myself. What if he had died while I slept? How could I explain myself? “Will you watch one hour with me,” Jesus had asked in his Agony. I had failed.  I could hear my mother’s voice quoting the biblical verse, mockingly. Just like your father, useless, she’d screech at me.

Panic stricken, I threw open the bedroom window and gulped in great big breaths of the cold night air. My father. If only I knew who my father was I could leave my mother and her problems behind; move on with my life.

Seizing its opportunity the moon slid over the sleeping form in the bed its light reflecting off his oxygen tubing. Then moving on it spread its silvery beam on his hands and then his face lingering there for a while.

My uncle smiled as if he was dreaming. Then, stretching out his hand he grasped the bed railing and sat bolt upright fixing his eyes on me.

“She sent you to find out the right way of it, didn’t she,” he demanded to know.

I stared at his toothless countenance too shocked to respond.

“She’s been hiding from the truth in that wine bottle for years. Tell her I said she’ll not find it there,” he gasped falling back on to the pillows.

 “What truth? Who my father was? Why he left my mother?”

 This uncle of mine couldn’t die now. He was my only chance to get answers to the questions that had plagued me all my life.  Ever since school I knew my classmates knew something about me I didn’t know.

 His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his throat emitted a rasping rattle somewhere between a cough and a choking sound.

“Tell me,” I shouted losing all composure “Who was my father?”

“You’re… looking at him,” he panted, saliva dripping from his chin.

“I’m dying. Give me the last Rites,” he begged his voice so low I had to bend over him to hear.

Feeling his breath still I backed away.  “You can’t be my father. You’re a priest, like me,” I gasped out.