On: Losing Abraham
Colleen Rogers
Back in the early sixties,
there were no Ronald McDonald Houses for sick children. Children were exiled from their families and
were tucked away in rigid hospital wards for treatment. Why it was considered a good idea at the time
to keep a collective, cherubic germ trough is unfathomable now, but so it
was. Perhaps back then it was thought to
promote unified healing, or collaborative treatment—to me, it remains a mystery
of unintended cruelty.
Lined up neatly together,
but each on their own slab of sickness, every child in our ward would sob after
the adjournment of punishingly restrictive visitations from their parents. Parents could often only peer through the
reinforced glass of impermeable doors to see, but not touch, their child. Children would stand to reach their parents,
tripping over too-long hospital gowns, annoying the nurses by pulling off
fragile life-lines.
I was a very sick child homed
here during such time. Blue I was, and with six holes in my heart. It was in this state, and at this place, that
I met Abraham. My little cot, closest to
the ward’s door, was next to Abraham’s, and we were each other’s best and most
wondrous friends. Abraham told a lot of
silly jokes and stories that mostly didn’t make sense, but he would laugh at himself
anyway. He would keep on until I laughed
too, even if it hurt just a little bit. Abraham
was missing two of his front teeth, just like his Mama, and I sometimes
wondered if I looked like my Mama in the same way. Abraham could never really whistle because of
his teeth’s gap, and I would kid him about it when I felt well enough to chide. After I mocked him, though, I always felt badly
and said I was sorry.
It was difficult to sleep
at night where we stayed. Some of the
kids in our room would cry. Nurses would
come in and whisper-yell to keep them quiet.
Sometimes kids would still moan from shots, medicine, or pain. Abraham never slept. He liked to pull out his IV’s, climb out of his
bed, and scurry down the hall to see how far he could get before the nurses
caught up with him. His Mama worked at
the hospital, scrubbing floors. She
would, on her knees, come by our room, scrub floors outside, and sing Gospel
songs to us—it was the only way to get Abraham to fall asleep. Sometimes, when the nurses
weren’t looking, she would sneak in to put her warm hand on each of our
foreheads while she sang to us. I could
not believe how much her hand felt just like my Mom’s. I, even now, think that
the I Remember Mama storywriters must have even known everything about my
and Abraham’s Mamas.
One night I noticed that
Abraham didn’t seem to want to tell jokes or prank the nurses. I asked him what was wrong, and he didn’t say
anything, just shook his head and smiled.
After a while, I don’t know how long, Abraham started having a hard time
breathing, and he was looking up at the ceiling. I knew he was in trouble, but I was wise enough
to press the button for the nurse. I
remember that I pressed so hard that my thumb was blue, pink and white. After a childhood-long eternity, a lot of
people came rushing in all at once, and I heard the metal on metal curtain rip-pulled
to circle his bed. There was a lot of hushed
adult talk, and when they wheeled out his cot, he looked so very still and
flat. I kept asking what happened, but
no one answered. After a few minutes of
sickening quiet, I heard it. Abraham’s
Mama.
AAAAA-BRAAAAA-HAAAAAM
His name. It was in a screaming wail, high-pitched and
guttural…like it was coming from an animal being devoured in the wilderness. I have never heard anything more frightening
or more soul-crushing, but it can always be conjured in wrenching my own heart-pierced
memory. Abraham’s Mama tears eventually grew
softer and softer as she was being lead down the hallway…until her comforting
essence disappeared from that place forever.
The next day, I asked the
nurse about Abraham…she told me too cheerfully that he had gone home. It was at that moment that I knew that adults
lie. I knew exactly what had happened to
Abraham and his Mom, and I realized that children like me could not be sold
falsities. At night, in my loss in the
ward, I would try to remember the words to their gospel songs for comfort,
humming the tunes in my little cot.
The remainder of my
recovery was winter-sad and somberly difficult.
I would watch my parents walk to their car after visiting. I would see my stoic Dad cup his arms around my
Mom’s slumped shoulders, and I could see that she was crying downhill. Still, I did understand that I was getting
better, and I sensed that soon I would be going home.
Why couldn’t Abraham go be
with his Mama, too? Was it my fault that
he couldn’t? What if I had pushed the
button faster or harder? Would that have
helped his Mama see him come home? What
if I tried to stop Abraham from taking out his medicine? What could I have done to save him so that I
would see him again, properly well, and even more mischievous? Did Abraham insist on playing because he
knew? Why did I always tell him that I
was too sick when he wanted me to go with him?
Would he have had a friend in heaven if I had not stayed in my cot and been
so good?
When I finally got to go
home, I never ever told my parents or siblings about Abraham. The grief I held over losing him was all my
own to trestle. I knew that my parents
had gone through so much over me being sick that it seemed the height of
cruelty to burden them with more of my own emotional ravaging. I never felt that anyone else in my family
would be able to comprehend, or needed to be burdened by, a child’s bottomless
guilt.
My friends in life, to
this day, have been mostly superficial by choice. I harbor the underbrush of fear that I don’t
have the wherewithal to keep the ones I love safe and out of harm’s way. In fact, it wasn’t until far into adulthood
that I chose my husband to cradle the story of Abraham along with me. He supports my speculations about what might
have happened to Abraham’s Mama. Together
we wonder--did she have more kids, is she still spreading her warmth around
other hospitals, does she lead the singing in Sunday services?
I think a lot, of course,
about Abraham, too. I picture him being
a boy frozen in time, and I hope that he might someday greet me with a chess
board or cards, teaching me just enough play so that he may always remain
undefeated.
