Hope Lost

I had flown and waited in various airports for over 18 hours. My friend Allen picked me up when I arrived. We hardly spoke. I could barely speak anyway, having cried most of the trip in the dry, plane air. His hug didn’t registered as he threw my one suitcase into the trunk of the car and sat me in the seat next to him. He held my hand the entire way there.

Nearly an hour of driving and we were there. We entered the building, cool and quiet and smelling of pending death. Allen held me tightly to keep me from falling as we walked to the ICU (intensive care unit). Clearing my identity with the officials in white he gently led to the door of her room.

It was so quiet and seemed foggy. Allen let go of me and said he would wait for me outside. I stepped tentatively across the threshold into the sound of competitive machines pumping and beeping and chiming in some sub-syncopation. I took a deep breath and looked at the large bed standing so lonely in the middle of the large room.

I couldn’t look at the person laying there, knowing the moment I did, I would have to deal with the reality that I had only imagined during the almost 30 hours since my journey began to reach here.

So with my eyes averted, I walked to the far side of the room and pretended to look out the window, knowing she did not know I was here. She was in a deep, drug-induced coma.

I turned back and took my first look.

I can still feel the grip on my heart -- even today. She was so still. I moved closer to her, right up to leaning on the bed rail so I wouldn’t fall over from grief. Every place a needle or tube or monitor pad could be placed it was. There were bruises all over her arms and neck. There was a tube in her nose pumping sustaining substances into her; and a big tube taped carelessly to her face and in her mouth to breathe for her. Worst of all, her eyes were covered with pads and tape as if she was already leaving this world.

I knew people in comas could hear you, sense you and could react to you and I gripped my heart so hard to hold onto the tidal wave of emotions of pending loss so I would not betray my fear of no hope to her.

I reached my hand out to the only island of skin I could find that wasn’t pierced by some needle or covered with a bruise and rested my hand there and crooned to her of my love and that everything would be alright now, because I would make sure it was and that she was not alone. I would not leave her until I took her back to her little unit.

No response. Not even a twitch. I watched. No finger moved. The monitors remained stable. Nothing. She hadn’t heard me. I moved my face closer to hers and spoke again. But she did not seem to have a way to acknowledge me. I was too late…

To be continued….

Reality of the Real

Sometimes when we spend so much time in a virtual world, we can forget to keep a balance with real life. Think of the minutes, hours, days you have missed with family, loved ones and friends. Time is of course linear and it seems finite. So we can’t go back and redeem the time the locusts have eaten away, but we can look around us today -- right now in fact and before it is too late.

Yet, in the virtual world we can and do make real, deep and lasting friends with real people, just as we might if we were depending on letters written by hand on paper sent to us from afar by someone we have never hugged. And it is the hearts of people that we must always keep in mind.

A friend sent me a very wonderful email this morning and I need to share just a few of her precious words with you. This precious friend lives over 10K miles away and is as dear to me as someone who lives next door, yet we have only met in the virtual world. We are both concerned with the trouble in our virtual world lately and here is how she sees things…

“I think the virtual world is the most unstable place I have ever encountered. People throw themselves at you (as if in love) for almost no reason and leave you just as quickly the same way.

“And the pain is far worse than RL (real life) because, when something goes wrong, you lose everything... your whole life on your sim (simulated land or realm you live in). In RL we can at least retreat and lie low in the safety of our homes and maintain the rest of our life when things go wrong.

“In the virtual world you are left with “virtually” nothing. But then, in RL, I don't think people would behave as badly as they do in the virtual world either. Somehow, being without the other aspects of our being... our body language, our facial expressions, our tones of voice... suddenly we are subhuman and not real beings at all.

“Everyday we need to remember that we are real, we feel and we can be hurt. Not many in the virtual world remember that I think. To some, it is no more than a game.”