Teen Ink

october 28-november 3

10.29.12
She doesn’t even say hello when I come in. No waving. No acknowledgement. Her mother says it’s normal and to not be offended. She says, she just lays there when I try to change her clothes or sheets. It’s like she’s already gone. But I guess I just won’t let that be. I sit with her for hours and watch her flickering eyelids, because I know she’s in there somewhere.

10.30.12
Her eyes are closed as she mumbles, Chrrrl.
That’s my name, I guess.
Will you eat?
She clenches her lips.
Will you drink? I place a cup of water with a straw into her mouth. I see confusion behind her eyelids. Somehow.
Her mother walks by and says, Charles, it’s no use.

11.01.12
Odelia, are you awake?
Silence.
Her eyelids are drooped open. Her mother says doctors told her that she can no longer control her muscles during sleep. Her calm, sweet face relaxes as though she’s been dead for days. The only reassurance I have that she’s still with us is her heart beat. With my finger placed on her frail neck, I feel her heart racing.

11.02.12
I was called to Odelia’s house at 11.32 pm. Her mother says she thinks it will be tonight. We sit by the edge of Odelia’s bed looking through scrap books.
We occasionally say her name, but in vain. She’s not moving and she is not talking. Her breathing pattern changes every few minutes. Sometimes it’s so quiet and slow we think she’s already passed.

11.03.12
Odelia’s face is very childlike and pale, no makeup. She looks relaxed but I can’t imagine that being the case. I imagine her screaming. She has been so still that I can almost hear her eyes open. It’s like she looks right at me, not at Charles, but the core of what makes me alive as she sighs lightly.
She draws her last breath at 1.07 am.