Personal Essay

So it seems like the only thing I’m inspired to write about these days is Eric.  The following is a personal essay I wrote for my journalism magazine writing class:

Being in his room has become an addiction.  When I’m not here, all I can think about is getting here, and when I am here, I never want to leave.  I can’t stand the thought of him waking up alone.  He hates being alone; he’s always hated being alone. 

            Since he arrived two weeks ago, someone has been with him around the clock. His feeding tube bag, his IV fluid, and his antibiotic hang side-by-side, hooked up to three different machines that pump various fluids into his veins.  At the foot of his bed is his catheter and ventilator, which snakes its way over to the left side of his bed.  It’s like a monster with large, vacuum-like tubes coming out of it.  My 19-year-old brother’s head has tape on it, covering the incision from his first brain surgery and his drain from his second.

His face is consumed by his breathing tube.  I like that tube the least.  Each time he goes to breathe, he starts to choke.  Every 20 minutes he is forced to cough in order to remove the phlegm that is causing the pneumonia he developed since being in the hospital.  His coughs turn into choking when the accordion cord is wound from the back of his throat to the front and pushed back down again.  His hands are restrained like those of a prisoner so he can’t pull out his tubing, and he’s covered by a white blanket with a yellow one on top, signaling to the nurses that he is a patient who can’t get out of bed. 

            All I can think about is how I wish it had been me and not him.  I hold back tears that seem to trickle through my body, beginning in the backs of my eyes and seeping down in my chest past my stomach and into every fiber of my being.  I never let them out.  I stay strong for the little brother I love.

            I close my eyes and hit my head against the back of my chair.  I tighten my grip on my brother’s cold, limp hands and stare in shock at the machines that are keeping him alive.  He has dozens of wires hooked up to his heart, hooked up to his hands, hooked up to his brain.  A white sock hat keeps the wires attached to his head in a bundle, wires that tell the doctors what’s going on inside.  I want to go inside his head – to tell whatever’s hurting him to stop. 

            I continue to squeeze his hand as the doctors and nurses enter the room.  We spend 20 minutes trying to wake him up.  I talk in a soothing voice.  I yell.  I cry.  Other nurses gather at the door.  We can’t wake him up.  Nothing is working.  I numbly watch as a nurse shines a flashlight in his eyes five different times.  Each time he doesn’t respond, can’t respond.  His eyes stare back, lifeless and empty.

            I don’t know if he’s hurting.  I feel like I don’t know anything.  I want to scream, “Fix him!  Bring him back to me!”  And I do, but only in my mind.  Nobody hears me; nobody listens; nobody fixes him.

            I remember growing up how he was always the fixer.  He was the funny one, the one who could make everyone laugh.  When he was a blonde haired, blue eyed pixy-sized boy, he would put on our daddy’s boots and walk across the room pointing imaginary guns, saying, “How ya doin’ partner?”   For years, we put on plays for my parents and sold tickets for a quarter apiece.  When we got really crafty, we started to draw pictures and sell them to the neighbors.  That stopped after a while, though, because my parents were embarrassed by our artistic ability.

My little brother was the one who could never remember the words to songs but sang along in his off- pitch voice anyway.  He was the sentimental one – the one who insisted on sleeping on the floor of my room every Christmas Eve, even when we were too old to believe in Santa Claus.  He was the ornery little boy who snuck Halloween candy into the back closet and proceeded to eat the entire bowl full before my dad found him.  He was the sweetheart who called to tell me about the promise ring he bought for his girlfriend he had loved since preschool.  He was my partner in crime when we drove to high school with our heads out the windows because we were too late to scrape off our frosted windshield. 

But now, when I glance at the shapeless form on the bed next to me, I see only a shell of the person my brother used to be.  I am reminded of all I want him to be, all he should be.  The range of emotions I feel starts to swell inside of me again, but this time I am not able to contain myself.  Choking and sputtering, I stop at nothing to release the dam that has formed in me over the course of the last few weeks.  I hunch over and let my body shake.  I finally free myself.

And in that moment I realize whether my brother recovers or not, the most important thing I can do is allow myself to feel exactly what it is I need to feel.  Life experiences make you into the person you are meant to be.  And right now, I know I am meant to be right here, sobbing beyond control, next to the man I am so proud to call my brother.