#3

I was in a bubble. A glass case. Watching a TV show. A scene from an ER. A young blonde girl has been wheeled in from an ambulance, unconscious, intubated, bruised, in a stiff neck brace and on a board. Her naked body covered under a thin sheet. Twenty people in yellow gowns and masks surround the body, shouting orders and taking commands. It was a well choreographed dance I watched. Each person completing his own task in well coordinated chaos. Poking. Prodding. Measuring, x-raying. As one they rolled the body to its side, her naked backside exposed. At other times the sheet shifts, exposing her breasts. Such violation I witness. Such arbitrary loss of dignity. It breaks my heart for her.

I stand silently off to the side, my dull tear-stained eyes staring, taking it all in. Mumbling something of seeming importance occasionally to the social worker at my side, who alerts the doctors that it might have been a medication administered at the last hospital, that she was still having seizures until right before we left, that she was hit in the head but didn't lose consciousness, that she has no history of seizures.

Eventually her father arrives and joins the solitary audience. After awhile she is wheeled through the hospital to ICU where the yellow coats settle her in, then begin to disburse. Her body tremors (not seizures?) and she is tucked under a blanket. Her dad and I settle on the couch to continue our vigil. It hurts to look at her. It hurts to talk to her, wondering if somewhere in there she can hear me. It seems lately everything I say annoys her, and I'm so very self-conscious of everthing I say, hoping to bring comfort and not annoyance. I stroke her arm and forehead, somewhat reluctantly, knowing that if she were awake I would not be allowed this luxury. Wondering if in her head she's willing me to remove my hands from her. I've lost confidence in my ability to mother her, to bring comfort. God, when did that happen?