“I was asleep when he died. I mean, I never intended on it RIGHT then, but I guess you never do – I mean sleep – not dying. Maybe it’s the other way around (as if it matters). I’m a little confused, ‘cause isn’t it all just a dream anyway? Now you’re judgin’ me, like it’s Gethsemane or somethin’. I just want ya to know, I did my best – I tried to soothe him by readin’ at his bedside all night. Just wanted to give him a voice…to know he wasn’t alone. They tell me that hearin’ is the one sense that comatose patients still have. ‘They’ is the hospice nurse, that is. First, I tried the Gospels, ‘cause he liked the Bible. But when I had to skip past the parts of vindictive, eternal suffering, I put ‘em aside (for good). Dyin’ guys don’t need to hear about a wrathful God, they just need a little comfort. That’s why, every once in a while, I dabbed his blue, scaly lips with the little pink sponge on the green stick. Most of the water dribbled from his mouth, like Matthew from mine, but I think it still helped him some.”
“What you’d do next?” you ask.
“Well, that’s when I moved to Whitman. I Googled poetry on my phone and found him. Tell me this isn’t powerful stuff.”
I celebrate myself, and sing myself
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
“Wow,” you say. “Powerful, for sure. But why did you fa…?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell ya. I think that’s why I fell asleep – because of Whitman. I mean old Walt’s hypnotic verses in the darkest hours of the night would make anyone want to just rest ‘em for a few…right?”
##
“The next thing I knew it was morning. The Cheyne-Stokes breathing had stopped, and it was silent in the sterile, white room. I went to his forehead and touched my lips to his skin. The fever was gone. I clicked my phone to check the time and inadvertently hit photos. I pulled up the one when he was in high school, his eyes looking to the future through his big black-rimmed glasses. Then the one with him and my mom, married a year before I was born. Finally, me and him, the first time he took me fishin’. I was a happy boy, smiling after catchin’ three sunfish. He was gleamin’ with pride. That was the day we ran out of bait, and he told me to look under the leaves of grass for more.”
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