Take her home, tonight.

I feel like she is leaving tonight. I feel like when I wake up in the morning she will be gone. Tonight I washed her hair. She wanted me, she needed me. She refused all offers of food, a soup, a potato, a can of her prescription diet, a milkshake, a jar of baby food. I managed to get one teaspoon of baby food in her mouth. But she couldn’t swallow it. She wanted nothing of that.

But she was agitated and upset and she needed me. I said yes mommy, what do you need, show me. And she led me to her room, to her bathroom, where she knelt on the floor beside her tub. Inside the tub she had a bucket and a jug. She tried to fill the bucket with water, and as she waited for it to grow warm, she struggled with her shirt, off over her head. I folded it for her, whilst I watched and waited patiently, I too sat on my knees. The water didn’t get warm, and I saw she had the cold tap on, and the warm one was closed. I changed the taps’ direction and warm water gushed into the bucket, where I then realized she didn’t have shampoo ready. She wanted me to wash her hair.

I felt her whispy white hair with my fingers, it was clean. I rubbed my fingers on her scalp and she closed her eyes and smiled. She leant forward and I poured the first jug of warm water over her head. Her hair is so thin, it took three small jugs for it to be totally saturated, to the scalp. Her pink scalp shone through like a delicate slip underneath a silver dress. A smidgeon of shampoo was all that it took to lather her whole head.

She closed her eyes, and I began to pray, aware of this feeling of loss. I felt like she is leaving tonight. I felt as if my fingers could never touch her again in this way, in this intimate way, that she washed my hair as a girl, that I now wash her hair for her. When it was time to rinse it off, she smiled at me, this gaping smile, her sapphires are still so blue, and she covered her eyes with a face cloth.

 I poured warm water and again I prayed. Take her now. Sweet Lord Jesus. Do not allow her to suffer. Take her tonight whilst she sleeps, underneath the cotton sheets of home. Take her before her body wastes away more than it already has. Take her before they give her antibiotics, and medicines, to fight infections. Take her before this winter comes and her chest hurts from the sensation of drowning within her own skin.  Take her before her unsteady gait causes a fall and the break of another bone. Take her before her hunger destroys her will to live. Take her when she is crying, and we’re unable to console her.

 She walks around crying, this howling, like an unhappy baby. Daddy handles it with laughter, he does the best that he can, he jumps to her every need. But he’s frantic. He eats his meals that I put on his plate, like an outlaw, marooned to eat solid food, whilst his wife chokes on water.

I can’t help but feel He will take her tonight.

11-27-15

8:24pm