The Patient

The pain she felt today was new, but that was no surprise. Her doctor had told her it was spreading, her liver, her lungs, and now her bones. They make doctors so young these days. Thank God for the morphine, because she felt she was floating above it, almost as if someone else had the pain.

Her son and daughters were there with her, and when she looked at them, she saw them not as they were in the present, but as they were that summer they had the beach house. Frankie was ten, Mary eight, and little Colleen only six. She could almost hear them laughing and yelling in the surf as the small waves gently pushed against them. She could even see the sand castle they had built along the ocean’s edge, and hear how Colleen had cried when an extra large wave washed it away.

She opened her eyes when she felt someone take her hand, and saw it was Colleen, no longer six years old, but now a mother of her own college age children. Mary, ever the practical one, was reading a magazine, and Frankie, first born and only son, was unsuccessfully trying not to cry. She gave him a little wink, and he returned a tiny smile through his tears.

She missed her husband Jim. He had died six years ago, and she thought of him still every day. She always remembered him as a young man, with wheat colored hair and deep blue eyes, with that devil may care smile that made each day such a joy. He would come to the beach house that summer after work and take the kids out for ice cream. He said it was just to give her a few minutes alone, but she knew it was really because he loved to spoil them when he could, and that he lived for the cries of ‘Daddy’s Home!’ when he drove up. They had been a good team and raised terrific kids.

She felt she was floating now, just lightly touching the bed, if that was possible. She tried to open her eyes but she didn’t seem to have the strength. Someone was holding her hand. She could still hear Frankie trying not to cry but he seemed so far away. She was beginning to get afraid because it was dark and she couldn’t open her eyes, when gradually it became lighter. In the distance she saw a familiar figure, but couldn’t quite make out who it was. A young man with wheat colored hair. Jim of course! Who was that standing next to him?