The wonders of life can be acquired by just looking
Through our eyes we can absorb all of the many things life and nature have to offer. A squirrel in the park, flowers blooming, a beautiful dress at a store, the beautiful guy or girl who every day sit's on the same park bench to read the news while enjoying a cup of coffee-A beautiful sunrise with friends, or a sunset of the beach with a loved one, all of those things stay printed in our memory and all we have to do is open our eyes and see.
But beauty and wonder are not alone in this world, there is also sadness, danger, havoc, death, and all of us at one point in our lives will have to witness some of that, moments that will be branded in our minds forever, and no matter what we do, we will never be able to erase them.
This is one of the topics our @galenkp has brought to us for this Weekend Engagement, and while all of them are interesting and awesome as always, Without Seeing was the one that caught my attention the most.
Have you seen death? I have, and I wish I haven't.
My dad died on November 1rst, 2019, at 10:03 pm. He was sick, and he had been letting himself go, not eating or drinking fluids, no matter what we tried, he was tired, and in a lot of pain-he was only 65 years old. On the morning of October 31st, All Hallows Eve he had a stroke-we had scolded him for not eating again, I sat with him and made him eat a little bit, and he did, but half an hour later he threw up blood and we knew something was very wrong.
I called the ambulance which arrived forty-five minutes after I called them, and to the hospital, we go. Over there, they stabilized him but he was totally enabled to close his mouth, he couldn't speak, he couldn't eat, he couldn't stand up, but was fully conscious. Through his big amber-colored eyes, he let us know that he was hurting big time, and there was nothing we could do to stop that.
The doctors ordered a CT Scan, which the hospital was, is not equipped to perform, so we had to do it privately and of course, is very expensive, in a country and a year when people were struggling to barely make ends meet. We sought out the money but had to wait until the next day because the clinic closed early that day-brilliant- so we took turns to stay with dad that night, I took the longer shift with one of my brothers, and at 3 am a lady called Carmen passed away due to sepsis. My dad was so desperate to get out of that bed that at one point we thought about restraining him to keep him from hurting himself.
After the CT Scan, which showed the ischemic stroke, we went back to the hospital but his condition worsened, his brain and lungs started to fill with fluid and by 8 pm the doctors told us to get ready because at any moment he was going to die. We said goodbye, asked him for forgiveness for not being able to help him as he deserved, and by 10:03 pm he was gone.
My mom couldn't handle all the procedures that had to be done so I took it upon myself to do it, starting with signing the death certificate and claiming the body in the morgue-His body on a metal plank, covered with one of our sheets because the hospital doesn't have any of that, then the wind blew it of him and I saw him, already in rigor all clenched up, knees up, arms across his chest, eyes open, an image that to this days still haunts me.
For the first months after his death, whenever I closed my eyes I saw that image, my dad's dead body on a steel plank all clenched up, then it was in my dreams, even happy dreams about my dad and then that picture. Now, 2 years later, I still see that I still see him, even if I'm not thinking of him, and it brings me down every effing time. I think of the pain and suffering he went through and I blame myself for not helping enough-I would happily trade places with him, but it's too late, he's gone, and besides all the happy memories and teachings I treasure, that picture is carved in my brain, and I fear it will never go away.
Pixabay: Karen_Nadine/320 images
That's it folks, see you next time!
✨✨Blessings✨✨
The images are from Pixabay and properly sourced.
The gif banner was made by me using Canva.
✨✨Blessings✨✨
The images are from Pixabay and properly sourced.
The gif banner was made by me using Canva.
The gif banner was made by me using Canva.