Read Online Fallen: A Trauma, a Marriage, and the Transformative Power of Music by Kara Stanley - Free Book Online
Authors: Kara Stanley
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stands now, waiting.
“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” I say, stalling. I lead them down the long hallway to a small, semiprivate anteroom midway between Sassafras and the ICU . Marc and Lorna sit across from me. Two Monet-like prints hang on the mauve wall above their heads: a stream running through an amber autumn forest and a path winding through spring-green trees. Emily sits beside me, leaning in toward my shoulder. She wears her Accordion Revolution shirt, and it evokes a flutter, a shadow memory, of happy days in Toronto: streetcar rides in the snow, Earth Day on the Islands, Kensington Market, after-hours at the Dakota Tavern. She is bracing herself for the news I am about to deliver, but she is also lending support so I can get through saying it.
I am afraid.
They will want to know why. Why were we on the Sunshine Coast? Why weren’t we in a city where Simon could more reliably work as a musician? Why were we so far away from his family home? For his family, Simon and I have never stopped being the rash young couple tripping into parenthood before we were fully prepared. Our move west was an integral part of our growing up, but I wasn’t sure that’s the way the rest of the family perceived it.
And I am guilty.
Guilty for not reading the signs properly.
I have such a weird feeling. Like everything in my life is about to change. Totally change, like on a molecular level. Like my very atoms are shifting.
I am guilty for not listening hard enough, for not really hearing what Simon said. I am guilty for not dragging him back to bed, insisting he ice his sore wrist and play hooky with me.
But when I am done there is no anger, no recrimination, no pointed finger. There is pain and there are tears and there is fear and there is love. Unexpectedly, I am a little stronger having them here.
I take them to the glass ICU room, and Marc, like Eli, is almost physically unable to walk into the room. He collapses onto the nurses’ station, his anguish a physical force. He steadies himself and makes it in on his second try.
The left side of Simon’s face balloons out from the gauze bandaging. Every time I enter this room, the swelling is worse. The ICU nurse has contacted Dr. Haw to report that Simon’s left pupil, while still reacting to light, has become sluggish.
“But it’s hard to monitor it,” the nurse explains. “The swelling is so bad I’m not really able to open his eyelid.”
{ 9 }
BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT
----
MANY PEOPLE ARRIVE from the Sunshine Coast. I appreciate their presence and the energy they cultivate in support of Simon, but I am unable to repeat the news of his prognosis over and over again. I have told Eli and Marc, Lorna and Emily, and I can do no more. My mind is rubbery and full of empty spaces and I am unable even to hear the well-meaning assertions that Simon is strong. That if anyone can make it, Simon can. The things they say I believe to be true—Simon
is
strong—but all that is beside the point right now. I nod my head blankly when they speak and feel as if I am agreeing to an obvious and potentially dangerous lie.
“Moments in time,” my friend Susann whispers in my ear as I lean into her hug. “These are moments in time.”
This thought is a gift that acts as a buoy, a kind of life-saving floatation device, and I find myself repeating it over and over in the coming days just to keep my head above water.
THERE IS NO new update on Simon’s condition, and in the early evening Marc and Lorna retire to Jer and Barb’s house in North Vancouver. Like me, Emily cannot conceive of leaving the hospital, and she is determined to spend the night with Simon. She promises to call if there is any change in his condition, allowing me to retreat to the hotel room and spend some time with Eli.
The hotel room is a block away from the VGH Emergency entrance. It is almost seven o’clock in the evening when I leave, and the heat and the traffic have died down. It is a recognizable
“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” I say, stalling. I lead them down the long hallway to a small, semiprivate anteroom midway between Sassafras and the ICU . Marc and Lorna sit across from me. Two Monet-like prints hang on the mauve wall above their heads: a stream running through an amber autumn forest and a path winding through spring-green trees. Emily sits beside me, leaning in toward my shoulder. She wears her Accordion Revolution shirt, and it evokes a flutter, a shadow memory, of happy days in Toronto: streetcar rides in the snow, Earth Day on the Islands, Kensington Market, after-hours at the Dakota Tavern. She is bracing herself for the news I am about to deliver, but she is also lending support so I can get through saying it.
I am afraid.
They will want to know why. Why were we on the Sunshine Coast? Why weren’t we in a city where Simon could more reliably work as a musician? Why were we so far away from his family home? For his family, Simon and I have never stopped being the rash young couple tripping into parenthood before we were fully prepared. Our move west was an integral part of our growing up, but I wasn’t sure that’s the way the rest of the family perceived it.
And I am guilty.
Guilty for not reading the signs properly.
I have such a weird feeling. Like everything in my life is about to change. Totally change, like on a molecular level. Like my very atoms are shifting.
I am guilty for not listening hard enough, for not really hearing what Simon said. I am guilty for not dragging him back to bed, insisting he ice his sore wrist and play hooky with me.
But when I am done there is no anger, no recrimination, no pointed finger. There is pain and there are tears and there is fear and there is love. Unexpectedly, I am a little stronger having them here.
I take them to the glass ICU room, and Marc, like Eli, is almost physically unable to walk into the room. He collapses onto the nurses’ station, his anguish a physical force. He steadies himself and makes it in on his second try.
The left side of Simon’s face balloons out from the gauze bandaging. Every time I enter this room, the swelling is worse. The ICU nurse has contacted Dr. Haw to report that Simon’s left pupil, while still reacting to light, has become sluggish.
“But it’s hard to monitor it,” the nurse explains. “The swelling is so bad I’m not really able to open his eyelid.”
{ 9 }
BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT
----
MANY PEOPLE ARRIVE from the Sunshine Coast. I appreciate their presence and the energy they cultivate in support of Simon, but I am unable to repeat the news of his prognosis over and over again. I have told Eli and Marc, Lorna and Emily, and I can do no more. My mind is rubbery and full of empty spaces and I am unable even to hear the well-meaning assertions that Simon is strong. That if anyone can make it, Simon can. The things they say I believe to be true—Simon
is
strong—but all that is beside the point right now. I nod my head blankly when they speak and feel as if I am agreeing to an obvious and potentially dangerous lie.
“Moments in time,” my friend Susann whispers in my ear as I lean into her hug. “These are moments in time.”
This thought is a gift that acts as a buoy, a kind of life-saving floatation device, and I find myself repeating it over and over in the coming days just to keep my head above water.
THERE IS NO new update on Simon’s condition, and in the early evening Marc and Lorna retire to Jer and Barb’s house in North Vancouver. Like me, Emily cannot conceive of leaving the hospital, and she is determined to spend the night with Simon. She promises to call if there is any change in his condition, allowing me to retreat to the hotel room and spend some time with Eli.
The hotel room is a block away from the VGH Emergency entrance. It is almost seven o’clock in the evening when I leave, and the heat and the traffic have died down. It is a recognizable
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