Thirty Six ()()()() Tomorrow

It was as if for the first time she was seeing this skinny child, her fifty nine years old husband. Why was he unloved? Why was she unloved? She walked to the door and left the room as abruptly as she could. She needed to get away for awhile. She needed unaffected air, she needed to see the wild flowers she had seen with Melisa, going to her sister's in Canton, even though in July they were all dead. She needed to see the blue sky, as blue as it could be without the interference of any cloud. She felt suffocated in that house. Walls seemed coming together to chock her. She went back to the room. Joseph's eyes were still fixed on the ceiling.
"I need to get out for a minute. Are you going to be okay?"
His eyes moved but not his face: " I understand. I'll be fine." He stammered.
Anna picked up her car key and her purse and ran outside. There was nothing close by to give her that sense of freedom she was yearning for; freedom from all these responsibilities, chains, and strangulation. Everything around was man- made, streets, lights, houses, even a man- made lake not that far. She needed to be with a naked nature, a pure nature that no man ever had the power to touch it; and that required driving far, very far, out to the country. But how could she do that? The thought of running away entered her mind; but no, no, she was to do her duty until the last second of her last breath. She should go back to Joseph, her sick, dying, and demanding husband. She thought what she had conquered in her life was the darkness made by open arms of God; silence which was not solitude but a hush holding its breath. Torn between flying off, going away, disappearing, and returning home to her dying Joseph, she finally decided to just drive around the neighborhood for awhile.
Some small children in a park not far from her home, were playing. Some mothers were running after them. An ice cream truck driver was engaged selling ice cream to some of those children. Life everywhere seemed normal. She wished to stop and talk to those people about her life and tell them what she was about to do tomorrow morning. She recalled a conversation she had with Mary, her old friend, the other day. Mary was suspicious. She was insisting that Anna would take Joseph to hospital. She was just acting like a mother that Anna wanted her to be for her. At one point of their conversation she said: "You know you need to absorb the color of life, but never remember its detail; because details are always boring." She did not tell Mary that she did not understand her at the time, but now she knew what Mary was saying to her. Yes, she was intense; Mary was right. Being honorable, as her father had taught her, now was there to haunt her. "You gave your word to me." Joseph had reminded her of that so many times that if she would hear it one more time, she perhaps would scream. She parked the car, turned off the engine, and brought the window down. She wanted to hear the sound of life, the simple ones and the complicated ones. However the sound of life there was all simple. Mothers calling their children, "Don't run, be careful, oh, it's okay, Let me kiss it and make it better..." She never had any of these simple things. Her life had been one intensity after another one. She envisioned tomorrow and the day after that, and the next... She envisioned Mary visiting her in prison. " Tell me what you've done. I would rather know the painful truth than imagine it." That was Mary; how she talked, or acted, blunt, to the point, but kind, kind, ... She thought about calling her. But on the second thought, "no, I can't do this to her." Her daughter just had a baby; and she was staying with her. She started the engine. Sweat was running down her back. She turned the air condition on as high as it could go; and its murmuring sound distracted her for a moment.
In the next street, there was a grocery store she always shopped. The parking lot was full with cars. Everywhere she looked, life appeared normal. She wondered if any of these people knew her pain or any of them had any pain of some sort; and if they did, why the acted so normal. She studied herself. Was she acting normal? Could people tell what she was going through?
The dusk was opening its wing over the vast sky, and the sun looked like a globe of fire. It was a lovely scene. The globe of fire stretched its wings all around with color of orange and purple and .... She would be back home in ten minutes. She knew herself well. She was not the type to run away. She had never run away. She had always faced the problems straight and forward. She sat in the car in front of her home for unknown time, pondering about tomorrow. What would be like for her tomorrow? Would she survive; and if she would how? How would she live? Would she be a widow again for the second time at age forty seven?
Tomorrow would be a new day or new misery! Would it be easy or heartbreaking? Her poor children were all gone, whom she loved as their were really hers. She loved her jobs with its miseries and its happiness. When a child was cured and was going home, she always was static. When a child dyed of his or her disease, a part of her dyed, too. She remembered her brother, Aria, Steve, her father, mother, and Stacy, oh, Stacy. They were all her children. Now this last unruly child, Joseph, this skinny, unsightly man, whom she adored, who wanted too much and he would sit still and was hard to make him listen. Was he the last she could love? Would he be gone tomorrow? What a great price she had paid for love all her life! She could and would not break her promise; and what was the sense of breaking it? No mother wanted to see her child in that much misery, pain, and close to death for two years! No, she had to, she should; that was the right thing to do. That would be the value she put on her love for him. But would she be able to love again? Would she be able to work again? Would she be prosecuted for speeding her husband's death? She called it mercy killing. She did not know the answer of any these, and at this point it did not matter. She did not want the sympathy of others. She had come to this world all alone, emigrated to America all alone; and now she would endure and face all the consequences all alone, too. But being lonely again! Oh, how awful it was to be forlorn, abandoned. If she could just turn the wheel of her fortune or undo everything! No, It would not work that way. Life never worked that way. You never get a second Chance. History books were filled with dead people. She would be dead one day, too; but her name would not be in any history book. What a shame! The names like Khomeini, Hitler, who had slain so many innocent people were in those books; and historians would write about more corrupt leaders to come in future, more dictators, more blood suckers who would do anything for money and power; but never the name of the uncorrupted, ordinary people. Why was it like that?

To Be Continued

Thirty Six [][][][] Tomorrow

It was a July afternoon, a mid summer heat and humidity. Anna noticed that Joseph amazingly had a little color on his face, like a little blush that had painted his sick face. She knew that was sign of nothing. At this point he was all skin and bones. Being a nurse practitioner for so long, she knew all kind of things. He perhaps was using his last energy to talk to her for the last time. But she was fearful; she was horrified by that sight. She knew what that talk would be about. She laid next to him with her hands clasped behind her neck. He was hesitant; nonetheless, he slid his hand under her head. She turned to him.
"I want to make love to you." His voice was barely audible.
She shook all over. She did not want to tell him that he was too weak for love making; or that kind of excitement was too overwhelming for him. He read all these in her eyes.
"I know what you're thinking. I want you to make love to me."
She understood what he meant. She knew this would be the last time. Oh, how much she had yearned their intimacy. She had never done this; to be the aggressor, but she had to, this last time.
They had a gentle, yet fierce passage of love. Both were satisfied. Then she, all alleviated by the suppressed passion and want, stayed next to him in bed, holding his hand. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
"If you love me, you help me die!"
Oh, hadn't she heard those words before? When was it? Where was it? She suddenly remembered her last trip to Iran, when her father had a heart attack. Then he had told her: "If you love me you go back." Her father had been afraid for her safety because of the revolution. Was Joseph, her husband afraid for the burden that he was, or was it for ending his own misery? What would happen to her after? He perhaps did not care. Did he really love her? If he did, how could he ask her such thing? Would her father ever request anyone to fall in that kind of trouble to save himself? No, she did not think so. Her father would even put his own life in front of the people whom worked for him to save them. Even though at the end they all betrayed him. Shahzdeh was an honorable man; and he had taught her to be honorable as well. No, Joseph and Shahzdeh were two different men. She got up from bed, stood next to bed, thinking. She thought about going to the den and call for an ambulance. He had lost his authority for his life when he had signed on the dotted line and gave her that authority. Why can't she use it? What is stopping her of doing what was right at that moment? On the other hand, did their marriage and their good years mean nothing to her? Anna bent on the bed, and kissed his lips and walked towards the door to leave the room and make that phone call. She had a set smile on her face that did not match her anguish.
"You're leaving me!" She could hardly hear him.
"I am going to call for an ambulance."
"You promised me never let me die in a hospital." He had a weak voice, yet it sounded authoritarian.
That, she had promised. She stood frozen at the foot of the bed. World was turning around her. She was tired anyway. She could not think about her future anymore.
"Tomorrow morning!"
He smiled.
*

To Be Continued

Thirty Six, Tomorrow

Tomorrow which its sorrow
Deludes the wisdom in marrow.
Yet its phantom leaves the last.
Tomorrow revivifies in that vast
Of all those misleading seeds;
Though it does not renew the seldom deeds.
The first cry of that sorrow
Rives the heart when it comes tomorrow.
*
In the first three years of that heavenly marriage, Anna felt something that words could not describe it. Everything that she had ever dreamed about, she had in those three years. Joseph could not be any more perfect for her or eccentric her as people called her. But now after the two excruciating years, she felt more and more about the unjustness of God, if he ever existed. "Why me?"
For some time, that vast darkness of past was not her enemy anymore; but it was her comfort. Now she was drawing back to her old habit; now everything was becoming obscure again. She remembered Joseph had told her once, at the beginning of his sickness, that death was not a one time event. She had not understood it then; but she knew now what he meant since death was permanent; and permanent meant continuous, forever. Therefore, death was not a one time event. Then another time he had told her that you are as the challenges you face. This one she understood, for it indicated how strong she had been and was, for the challenges she had faced were not only so many but arduous ones, too. She did not belong to the majority of people who did not defy any dares; and if they did, their confrontations were nothing compare to hers.
If only she could not tremble looking at the map of Iran, or the pictures of her family, including Steve, since Joseph did not mind her to display his picture, but she did tremble any time she looked at those. How could she stop this train of vision, this monstrous thought of coming to the surface again and again? They all started afresh after the beginning of Joseph's sickness. And how could they not?
Now perhaps, in this last significant moment of her life, when she had to decide on an important issue, life or death issue, her action was ruled by explicit conscience of what to do or what was the absoluteness in that action. However it was mostly by this internal inclination which came from her inner soul.
Joseph had refused to take his morphine for the entire week. She knew why and he knew why. Anna had hidden them somewhere in the den, so he could not easily reach them at the night stand and use them all. She just did not want to face this woeful surprise. On the other hand, as much as she loved him, she was also angry at him for his request. " You're a nurse. You know what to do?" It seemed to her that now that he was in so much pain, he loved no one, not even her; nonetheless, she knew that was not true. Probably one of the reason that he had lasted two yeas, not six months, was his love for her and her strength for him.
The sight of him, being in so much in pain and wanting so much to die was devastating to Anna. Cancer had metastasized, and now was every where. What would happen to her if she helped him to die? The words, "death is not a one time event" kept echoing in her ears. Death, did it matter for a cancer ravaged Joseph? She would escape to another room when he was aware or awake, so as he would not ask that question with his eyes. Nevertheless, what was the sense of prolonging the pain, the misery? She brainstormed other options like taking him to the hospital, or asking his doctor to order to take him to the hospital; so she could lift this great burden off her shoulder; but she knew any of those options were like being untrue to what she had promised him at the beginning of his cancer when the doctor had said that he had only six months to live. Then he made her to promise him not hospital or nursing home. "I want to die at home." When she had given him that promise, she had never thought that one day he would beg her for other things.

To Be Continued