The Life of a Blanket in the Medical Cen

    Life of a Blanket in the Medical Center
                    By
              Fredna DeCarlo

I am fresh and new my fibers are still crisp and fresh without the scent of laundry detergent yet. I am lying on the shelf waiting for the hands that will grab me and begin my life as a blanket in the medical center.
Here we go! The hands are smooth, but their owner is in a hurry because those hands grab me roughly and I slam against her leg as she walks briskly up the hallway.
Suddenly she slows and her mannerisms change and she becomes gentle and patient as she spreads me across the bed. The hands smooth me before leaving me alone to discover what will happen next.
The hand that gently rubs across me is old and weak. They are the hands of a woman who has lived a long and happy life. She pulls me to her face and I gladly absorb her falling tears and muffle her cries of agony and pain.
I caress her cheek as best I can and listen while she prays to her God, trying to explain her fears to him. She is afraid her fear is lack of faith, she is afraid her daughter won’t be able to handle her passing, she hurts because she will never be able to see her grandchildren grow up, graduate from high school, or have children of their own.
She gasps as the pain shoots through her again and her grip tightens as she twists me in knots until this round passes.
I feel her change beneath me and then I understand as I hear voices in the room. They are hushed and serious but full of concern.
“How are you mom?” I hear someone ask.
I feel the body beneath me struggle to shift into a position of leisure as she says “I’m doing pretty well.”
I wonder why she is lying. I don’t understand, but I realize it is imperative to her so I lie quietly as she lies. She is so still beneath me trying to hide the pain that is racking her body.
The children all take their turns kissing her and telling her how much they love her. I can feel her knowledge that the little ones are afraid of a grandmother they had always loved.
She lies still as each one’s little hands seek out the parts of her body that hurts the worst. I try to cover her as best I can, but I am thin and soft. I hope she takes comfort in my security.
She endures all of this gallantly and the whole time she stokes me absently with her fingers and occasionally pats me in an unconscious manner.
Finally they get up to leave and I feel the relief and terror seeping out of her and into me. She knows she cannot hide the pain from their searching eyes much longer, but the fear of knowing this may be the last time she sees them is more unbearable than the pain.
She reaches up and kisses each one of them for the last time and looks them in the eyes and declares her love for them. Their tears fall gently onto my surface and absorb deeply into my threads of memory.
The declarations of love and promises to return suffocate us from all sides of the bed. I feel my weight growing from the gravity of her feelings of fear and loss, but finally she gathers her courage and tells them goodbye.
They leave the room one by one silently and full of grief leaving us alone in our sorrow. She confesses all of her sins, joys, secrets and love. She curses the agony of this thieving illness to me and I store every word deep within my fibers and vow never to forget. She is still stroking me as she whispers. “I must go now my friend.”
Her hand’s weight grows heavy in death. She has left me here alone and I try to cover her completely until the hands return and toss me in the laundry bag and roll my departed friend away.
I lay suspended in nothingness for a time I do not understand. I am surrounded by smells that are both pleasant and horrifying at the same time. I am jostled and thrown onto the floor then I am lifted into the machines that wash away the stains of life.
I swear not to forget and the detergent strives to erase all memory of the lady from my fibers, soon it is hard to remember her scent and touch but the essence of her remains.
I am passed into the dry heat of forgetfulness for what feels like an eternity before falling into a crumbled pile on the table top. A new set of hands grab me snap me and fold me into a neat square. I am not as crisp as I was before and I believe it is due to the memory of the lady more than the wash, but I am still a reasonably new blanket. So off to the shelf I go.
I am not sure how long I lie there but suddenly the door opens and a hand grabs me. They are moving fast. I feel excitement and joy coming from the owner of these hands, but I hear what sounds like torture coming from across the room as we enter.
There are cries and moans and heavy breathing. People are talking in hushed voices, but I too feel the joy that overrides the agony as I am spread across the top if the bed.
I hear the owner of the hands sooth the woman in agony. “It won’t be long now, sweetie. You are almost there.”
The only reply is a scream and suddenly I am grabbed by the edges. I am being twisted and pulled and her sweat saturates me. She has taken me into her mouth and is biting down so hard I believe I will tear, but I endure it quietly.
Soon she relaxes slightly and I hear her breathing rapidly and harshly. Exhaustion is pouring out of her and into me like a faucet that has been left open. I feel drops of blood melt into my lower edges and wonder what has happened.
Then here we go again, the screaming, the breathing, the twisting, and pulling she is rigid with pain and tears are soaking me as she hides her face in my comforting hands.
It doesn’t stop, the screaming turns into a growl and the thrashing grows more and more rapid. The moaning that escapes around the edges of the growl are both ecstasy and terror. I know that neither one of us believe this will ever end.
Someone else has taken a hold of me. It is a man and his face is rough as he wipes sweat from his forehead and tears from his eyes. He professes his love for her in front of us all. He tries to soothe her, but once again the tightening and screaming returns.
My fear grows as she becomes so stiff beneath me she trembles and is almost beyond my reach, but I cling to her sweaty body for dear life. She pushes me away but I grab at her legs and hold on as best I can. The bedrail saves me from tumbling to the floor. I am afraid. The feelings and the pain are so intense I do not understand.
Then suddenly the whole world goes quite and the sound of a baby drawing in breath and crying his arrival to the world fills the air.
The body beneath me changes so suddenly I thought someone else had picked me up. The pain forgotten and the essence of God and love seep from her pores as her hands throw me back and reach for the tiny voice that has taken over the world of this room.
Someone hands her to her and the woman wraps this tiny bloody squirming life within me and pulls us both to her heart. I absorb every drop of blood and fluid I can. I place it alongside the old lady in my threads.
The joy and love in this room has filled me to the point I feel like a down comforter. The wetness of this new life has changed me deep within my core. I could stay right here forever, but I know I would soon be stiff and stained and have already been forgotten.
The hands gently take this precious life from us so the doctor “can look.” The woman dries her tears of joy with my surface and wipes them from the weeping eyes of the man.
There are new sounds in the room and clean up is beginning. I am taken from the lady even though now she clings to me as if I am the only reminder of her agony that she experienced so few minutes ago. I hear the owner of the hands whisper “Let me get you a clean blanket before we move to your room.”
I feel as if I am floating through the air and then once again I am within the blue laundry bag awaiting my journey downstairs to the laundry. As I lie there and wait I mingle the memories of pain and sorrow with these of happiness, love and joy. I vow I will not forget.
I am tossed down the linen shoot and my bag bangs against the sides trying to knock my memories from me, but I know they are now a part of my fibers so I relax and wait for the cleansing of the wash machine and healing heat of the dryer.
Once again the hands snap me out. I am now longer crisp and new I am weathered and soft. I hold the weight of memories. I am not the first blanket grabbed this time the hands come and go leaving me on the shelf waiting and alone.
Then there they are the hands that are searching for me. They are looking for my texture. One that says I understand and will comfort you. The hand closes around my edge and I am carried down the hall once again.
The feelings that immediately greet me are so vastly different. I feel the fear, hopelessness, and helplessness of the mother sitting beside her child’s hospital bed. She has hidden them so well that I almost don’t feel them, but they are there. The child sitting in the bed though is amazing. She is tired and scared. She feels weak and hollow, but is not old enough yet to know that that feeling is hollowness.
She’s too young to understand half of the things the doctors say to her mother, but she is old enough to know that something bad has happened to her.
Once again she is in the middle of her “treatment” and she is so sick at her stomach she wishes she could just lie down and disappear, but then she would see the worry in her mother’s eyes again so she sits and hopes it gets better.
She is only five and already has been poked by so many needles that she can’t remember them all. She really doesn’t feel so sick until she takes the medicine that is suppose to make her well. Then the sickness comes and it is horrible.
The hands reach out and hand me to the little girl and I see her smile and reach for me. She draws me close and I feel her little heart beating so fast I think it might take flight. Her body is damp and clammy from the nausea and her skin is so pale that I am afraid.
What is wrong with you little one I wonder and she wraps me around her like a shawl. It is as if my presence gives her permission not to be the strong one and she lies over and draws her tiny little legs up.
We lay still and silent taking slow deep breaths as the medicine drips into her fragile veins bring healing and misery at the same time. Her tears are warm as they pool between her face and my surface waiting to be hidden away from the watchful eyes of her mother.
Our stillness is so profound that occasionally her mother lays her hand on me to see if she is still breathing. The smell of the medicine is seeping out of her body and its harshness consumes the air in the room.
I cling to this fragile life as if every second with her will be my last. I listen to the false sounds of happiness in the voices that come in and out of the room. The playful tones this fragile child tries to return in order to ease their fears.
I feel the first retch start deep within her core and cling to her like a drowning swimmer as she heaves and heaves with no success. The sweat vacuum seals me too her and I am fearful that at any moment I will be stripped away and forgotten, but every time someone tries to remove me her gentle fingers close around me and refuse to let me go.
I soothe and comfort her as best I can. I watch as more medicine is given to make the horrible retching stop and patiently wait alongside her hoping that this is the truth.
I feel her drift off to sleep underneath me and her breathing slow and regular, once again she lies in absolute stillness and I cling to her deeply. Her fingers remain tight and I wait silently in her clutches.
We lay like this for hours. I listen to her mother cry while she is sleeping. I hear the words of encouragement from the owner of the hands and the words of knowledge from the chaplain that happened into the room.
“What does one say to the mother of a dying child, how does one keep their faith in the face of such heart ache. Why are we always dependent upon their strength to get us through instead of the other way around?”
I listened to these words and absorbed the mothers falling tears. They ran along my threads and settled down next to the memories already woven there and sealed into place by the innocence of the sleeping child.
How does one determine time in moments like these? They are flashes and eternities at the instant. They fill the room like air in a balloon, but time always runs. It never stops or waits on anyone or anything to catch up.
Her fingers rub me softly as she pretends to sleep longer than she has. She listens to the words being said and struggles to understand their meanings.
She is so weak now and the act of breathing takes so much effort, she wishes it would stop on its own and then takes it back the second she thinks it, not for herself, but for her mother.
I cling to this child praying that her essence of strength and courage becomes part of my fabric so I may share it with others in my journeys and fear for her survival every second.
We have made it through the afternoon and now the hands bring in soup of some sort. The smell cause her to tremble beneath me and I want to scream “take it away,” but she reaches out and takes the bowl, smiling at her mother over the steam.
I have found my place. I want to be this child’s blanket, I want to be her protector and comforter, I want to be the one that stands against her demons in the night and will never complain when she accidently gets vomit or blood on me. I will love and treasure every drop.
I am so lost in these thoughts that at first I don’t realize what has happened. I hear the movements and concerned voices, but have missed the cause. Then I feel it. The hot wetness of the soup and illness mixed together. I cling to her as she clings to me, but the hands are stronger and they win the battle.
I am tossed into the blue laundry bag. I listen to her cries of protest. If I had a voice I would scream out in retaliation, but that is not the case.
I hear the soothing words of the mother as they clean her up and change her bed and clothes. I long for her tiny body, but I know my time with her is over. I hear the owner of the hands say “here is another blanket” and her tiny protest of only wanting me.
So as I lay saturated with the horrors of life I weave love, and regret into my fibers and as I think of that new blanket caressing my child I learn a new word, jealously.