You’re locked in a room with your greatest fear. Describe what’s in the room.
The door is ragged with a worn out knob. A knob that will not let me escape – no matter how bad I want to leave. I don’t want to face what’s behind me.
I don’t want to turn around.
God, I don’t want to turn around to see what I fear the most.
You would think it’s a clown or a spider. No, those things aren’t what frighten me. I don’t like them but this is much worse than that.
I hear the sounds. Gasping for breath. The stifled, pained moans. They send cold shivers down my spine and I turn the golden device frantically to open the door but it won’t open.
The room is dark – save one single lamp.
I know what the room looks like inside my head and I don’t even have to look to know where I am. It’s a small room with a bed in the center. She rests there. The person that I love the most. The heart inside this person is more precious than all the gold in the world.
I refuse to turn around so I look at the dark brown paneling of the walls.
I run my fingers through the ridges that separate them. A thin black line. My finger grazes the rough texture and leaves me with the hope to take my mind off what’s behind me. It’s an insignificant line but it distracts me. I hear her soft little coughs and my heart races. A hand reaches out to touch my long, red shirt from behind and my body freezes.
Forcing myself to turn around but I don’t want to see what’s in front me. But I can’t ignore it any longer and my eyes fall upon the dust-ridden curtains flowing in the wind from the night breeze.
I look down at the golden brown carpet beneath my feet and keep my hands to the sides, knuckles clenched tight. I don’t want to look at what I can’t fix.
If I don’t look and see what their treatments and that disease did to her, it doesn’t exist.
Right?
Please, tell me that’s right.
I can do so much. I can ride my bike for miles, walk circles around the field outside, and can beat Bowser in any level of Super Mario.
I can cook anything and peel the potatoes, slice a tomato just like this person taught me. I can make her laugh that sweet laugh.
Such a beautiful sound.
She taught me to love. She taught me to forgive and she taught me to not pay mind to those who constantly ridicule me at that building for eight hours a day.
Why do I even have to go to school? I can spend my time here. Taking care of her. I should be the one that has to go through this pain. This horrible, wicked pain. Not her.
Long ago, she held my hair in her left hand while the right one pulled the brush through my hair. She can’t even do that any more.
Damned chemo. Damn it to hell!
A tear runs down my cheek when I take her hand. So cold. Sitting on the bed next to her, she lays her head on the pillow and smiles up at me finally through her pain.
I pull the brown comforter up to her neck and lower my eyes for a moment. Running my finger over the blankets and the sheet, she suddenly wraps her fingers around my hand, I reach up and give her a kiss on the cheek and try to smile. Looking back into her eyes, she returns that smile at me, whispering how much she loves me and always will.
How does she do that? How does she still smile when she’s about to…. Oh, God. I don’t want to even think it.
She’s weak and the circles are under her eyes. She wants to say goodbye. It’s taken over her body and there’s nothing that can be done.
She knows it.
I know it.
And I hate it with every fiber of my being.
She hurts so much. She had so many hopes to live. To see her grandchildren.
And this, this is my greatest fear.
To look into the eyes of someone I love and know there’s not a damned thing I can ever do to save them. To make her well.
Watching someone suffer that I’d give my right, left, or both arms for just so they’d survive. I kno
w she hurts and I want to stop it.
I can’t stop this from happening. I’m so sorry. I’m afraid that I can’t.
~S. Reed
The memory of my last night with my mother was so very hard. I hope that one day cancer will be treatable and will be eradicated. The only thing I could offer her was comfort, peace, and the promise to love her through it. I still love her so very much and have missed her every moment she’s been gone.
Focal Breeze 
Reblogged this on Focal Breeze and commented:
Post updated from last year on the last night I spent with my mother in 1996 before she passed away from cancer. The daily prompt, at that time, was to write about what you fear the most.
This post is dedicated to my mother and to all the people who have suffered a loss from cancer and those suffering the horrible ailment.
So much love and blessings to you all.
~S. Reed
“She taught me to love. She taught me to forgive and she taught me to not pay mind to those who constantly ridicule me at that building for eight hours a day.”
A sad write. Something are hard to understand. Thank you for the story.