Thanks for all the nice comments everyone (?and I just feel extremely happy today for some *cough* strange reasons? so I decided I?d post the new chapter a little earlier than I?d originally planned. I just wish this chapter was a bit happier... well, it won't ruin my happy feeling, though ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 17: A question
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mom!" Aidan's voice came from downstairs.
"I'm coming down in a minute!" I yelled back, picking up another sock from Lily's messy bedroom floor. It seemed she had still not managed to find the laundry basket I had placed on her room three years ago, even though I'd placed it next to her door with a sign on it saying ?laundry basket'.
"Mom!" Aidan yelled again, louder.
I let out an annoyed breath. "Honestly, can't you wait for two seconds?"
"MOMMY!"
I sighed. "All right, I'm coming."
I put down the laundry basket, and walked down the stairs. He was nowhere to be seen.
"Where are you?" I asked impatiently.
"Living room," he yelled.
I went over to the sofa group, and looked around. "I can't see you. And please don't tell me you got me down here just to play hide and seek or something. I've got a gigantic load of laundry waiting for me."
"I'm here." His voice came from behind the couch. His voice sounded... scared, maybe even a bit panicky, almost as if he had been crying.
He had probably been feeding the fishes. The aquarium was behind the couch, and Aidan loved the fishes. Maybe one of the fishes had died again. I had told the kiddies not to overfeed the poor things, but they never listened.
When I got over to him, he sat on the floor. His eyes were red, so he really had been crying. And he looked terrified.
"Why are you sitting there, Aidan?" I said, and crouched down next to him.
He whispered something.
"What?"
"Can't move my leg."
"You can't move it?"
He shook his head, sniffing.
I took his foot in my hand, and tried to do a few of the stretching exercises. But to my unpleasant surprise, his foot felt a lot stiffer than usual. Especially the ankle. He'd struggled more with his legs lately, almost walking on his toes sometimes, but I didn't know it had gotten this bad.
"Maybe you should put on the braces again," I said. They helped him doing the stretching while he was walking around, and hindered his feet from becoming deformed, but they were somewhat painful for him to wear.
I tried helping him to stand up - but since his foot didn't want to work, I just helped him up onto the couch instead.
Then I called his physiotherapist, to hear what she had to say.
A week later we stood outside the OR yet again, saying good-bye as they took Aidan away for yet another surgery, this time on his legs.
In spite of me working at the hospital, I had almost started hating the place by now. How many more times would I have to follow my son to a new surgery?
How many times did I have to comfort him, telling him everything would be fine? Telling him good-bye, give him a hug and wave until the surgeons disappeared through the door with him? How many times did I have to sit there, waiting - knowing this could possibly be the last time I ever saw him alive, because of the strain each surgery put on him - knowing his heart could simply fail there at the surgery table, and he would be gone? I knew they always had a heart specialist close by during Aidan's surgeries, in case something did happen. In some ways this just added to the worry.
How many times?
I just didn't know.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
The young boy who came rolling out of the hospital in a wheelchair a few days later was anything but happy. They had had to lengthen his Achilles tendons so he would still be able to walk - but things didn't look bright for him. The physiotherapist said his legs were already in a too bad condition to do much more, and he would most likely need a wheelchair full-time when he was around ten or so. The effect from the surgery would only be temporary.
After this, Aidan couldn't walk far without help. Not without the braces, anyway. He got a manual wheelchair, so he could travel around faster and easier at school and such while his legs got better from the surgery, but was told to use the braces as much as possible once the scars had healed.
Everything boiled down, twenty years or more may be too much to hope for. Needing a wheelchair already before he turned ten meant he probably would have even less time to live, especially because his heart only got weaker and weaker.
While I at a little over forty years old first now had lived half of my life - my son, only seven years old, had already lived almost half of his.
Life is unfair.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
As I was helping Aidan do his exercises one day, he seemed distant. I couldn't blame him. He'd had a lot on his mind lately.
"Mom?" he finally said.
"Hm?"
"How... how do you think it is to die?"
The question startled me.
"I mean, do you think it hurts? I hope it doesn't."
I just looked at him for a few seconds, trying to think of an answer. I couldn't come up with a single one.
"I... I don't know," I finally said. To be honest, it was not a question I wanted to answer.
"You know, great-gramps seemed so peaceful. Like he had just fallen asleep. Almost like he was still sleeping."
Oh, so that's what was on his mind? Only a few weeks past, the staff at the nursing home had found Peter's grandfather dead in his bed. The man had been over ninety years old, so it wasn't exactly the biggest surprise, but it had still put some fright in the children. Since then, Aidan had been distant, thoughtful. Like he was bursting with questions but didn't dare to utter them.
Apparently he couldn't hold them in any longer.
"I hope it's quick," he said. "Like falling asleep. You know - one moment you're awake, and the next you're gone." He looked at me. "What do you think, mom?"
"I'm... not sure. I have no idea, really. It's a difficult question no one really knows the answer to."
He turned away again. "I hope it's quick," he whispered - almost too low for me to hear it.
I shivered.
When your seven year old boy starts asking those kinds of questions, and you know there's a valid reason behind it - you kind of do start to feel like all hope is lost.
*******************************************************