Feb 2014
I have been inside my head for the past few days. Human contact has not taken me out of it like it typically would. My eyes have sunk deeper into my skull because of the lack of sleep, the more insomnia medication I take the less I sleep and I would think it would be the opposite. Perhaps it's the meals I've been missing, or maybe it's the people I've been missing, but either way I think my eyes have gone looking for something to fill this empty chest. If my heart is there, then I can't feel it beating and that's a terrifying thing to experience. They say the body's natural calming system is to listen to itself breathe and understand that oxygen is entering your lungs and you are alive. But I find that to be a rather uncomforting system. I have never wanted to be alive so why should my lungs working bring me any sense of equanimity.
I remember watching Frank die, they continued to perform CPR on him and use the AED to shock his heart back to beating. I remember counting then, I counted with the EMS to 30 for each compression, and then I counted how long it was in between the sounds of electricity to the sounds of hands pounding on his chest. I remember watching Frank leave, and I remember counting how many times my mother prayed to her rosary beads. 18. My mother prayed 18 times. I remember counting the minutes it took for my brother to drive home from college. Every minute felt like an hour so I counted every second to make sure I got to 60. It took him 42 minutes because it was 1:30 in the morning and there was no traffic on the highway.
I have Frank's poem hanging on my wall. I read it from time to time and I can see his soul. The last thing I remember of Frank was me hiding from him because my mother told me not to open the door to him because he was doing a lot of drugs. And the only reason he would be here would be to let him in his house because he locked himself out. The drugs did that to him a lot. But Frank was supposed to be getting better. Frank just signed into a rehab facility that day and he was getting better. But his heart had other plans.
I remember watching Frank die, they continued to perform CPR on him and use the AED to shock his heart back to beating. I remember counting then, I counted with the EMS to 30 for each compression, and then I counted how long it was in between the sounds of electricity to the sounds of hands pounding on his chest. I remember watching Frank leave, and I remember counting how many times my mother prayed to her rosary beads. 18. My mother prayed 18 times. I remember counting the minutes it took for my brother to drive home from college. Every minute felt like an hour so I counted every second to make sure I got to 60. It took him 42 minutes because it was 1:30 in the morning and there was no traffic on the highway.
I have Frank's poem hanging on my wall. I read it from time to time and I can see his soul. The last thing I remember of Frank was me hiding from him because my mother told me not to open the door to him because he was doing a lot of drugs. And the only reason he would be here would be to let him in his house because he locked himself out. The drugs did that to him a lot. But Frank was supposed to be getting better. Frank just signed into a rehab facility that day and he was getting better. But his heart had other plans.
