Head Cases

Michael no more....

...I haven't written about Michael in such a long time...he was a patient...he was a friend....Michael died...he couldn't use his computer...he'd gotten confused...then he went into the hospital...he was septic...his blood was infected...I knew something was wrong...very wrong....he couldn't tell us....but I know he knew something was wrong...but how long was he sick...he faded away in a matter of days...one day he was making CDs like always...then he couldn't even type out anything...his chin clicked his switch and there was no sense to what he was trying to tell us...his family didn't understand...we nurses didn't understand...the last shift I worked...Michael was incoherent most of the time...I talked to him...I think I knew he was dying...he'd so often said he was tired...I told him...Michael, I don't know if you can hear me, but I know something is wrong...I said, if you're tired of holding on, if you're only holding on for your family, then it's okay to let go, I said, if you are only holding on for others, not for yourself, then let go, if you're tired Michael, just let go...that was at the end of my shift...just before 3p.m....it was Tuesday...November 9th...Michael was taken to the hospital during the 3-11 shift...they called me at home and told me this...on Thursday...November the 11th...I received the call that Michael was gone...it was Veteran's Day a few years ago....that day a man on t.v. showed a collection of Western New York military people who'd been killed in Viet Nam...he'd worked on that for years...as I cried over Michael's death...I watched pictures of dead soldiers flash across the screen...I thought to myself, "it would be tripped out if they show a picture of my older brother", 3 pictures later...my brother's picture flashed across the screen...I'll always remember that day....seeing my brother's picture....who died in 1966...and Michael dying decades later...on Veteran's Day...