HOPE AGAINST HOPE

 

She does not smile like she used to. Nothing seems to interest her anymore. I worry that our routine has become boring for her. We sit on a park bench close to home every afternoon, watching the same people and their dogs. I get how that can become boring.

“Are you okay, Ash?”

“Can we go home?”

“Yeah, okay. We should go to a different park tomorrow. What do you think?”

“What’s the point, Win?”

“What do you mean? It’s beautiful out here, and the weather is good. We can meet new people, make new friends...”

She cringes like I have said something taboo.

“I have no future, Win. I don’t need new friends.”

This breaks my heart. “Ash...”

“There is nothing for me ahead, Winter. A black wall...is what I see. I am only waiting for the end.”

What do you say to that? I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. My baby sister is dying, and there is nothing I can do about it. I look at her. She is bald and ashy, and looks done with this day, irritated. How do I force her to dream as she used to when she sees nothing? I help her to her wheelchair and push her back home. I wonder what it is like to see nothing but a black wall ahead of you. For someone who used to love life, a dreamer with a bucket list, a daydreamer who would tell you all the smells of places she has never been from her imagination, it sounds wrong to see nothing. How does one go from that to seeing nothing but a black wall? It scares me.

“You are quiet again. What are you thinking?”

I clear my throat.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

I continue to push her.

“What is it like...the black wall, what does it make you feel?”

“Peace.” She looks up at me. I stop and look at her.

“Honestly. I feel like I’m done. My time is up. There is no more life for me to live. Healthy or not. If I didn’t have terminal cancer, I would probably get hit by a car.” She chuckles.

I don’t find this funny. I go around to kneel before her.

“Did you decide to stop seeing a future for yourself?”

She searches my eyes. I can tell that she caught the accusation in my tone.

“No, Win. It just happened. My script is done. All life ends, eventually, and mine has ended.”

I get up and go around to continue pushing her.

“You are still here, Ash. You aren’t dead yet.”

“Hm.”

We arrive home. The kitchen smells divine. Mom is making dinner. She is rather thin lately, and there are more grey hairs on her head than before.

“How are you feeling, Asia?” she asks.

“Fine.”

“Fix the table, will you, Winter?”

“Yup.”

I push Asia to the living room to sit with my twin brother, who is fully immersed in a show on T.V.

“Pay attention to her, will you, Sven?”

“Sure,” he says and immediately shifts his focus to Asia. She has that effect.

As I set the table, my mind keeps replaying the black wall in Asia’s mind. I cannot picture it in my own mind. It seems impossible to see nothing. There are too many images I can’t just erase. Even the things I wish weren’t there are living rent-free in my head. It makes me wonder what truly causes such a phenomenon. My sister is waiting to die, not because she is sick. She is waiting to die because she does not think there is any life left to live. I feel grieved for her, for the emptiness she is living in. It sounds lonely.

Every day she wakes and agrees to go to the park with me, I assume she still has some life in her, in her soul, at least. Is that not what living requires? I am not hoping for a miracle. I have seen her file. I have seen the pain she hides. If anything, deep down, I do wish death for her, if it will stop the suffering, but not like this. Not as someone who has forgotten to dream or someone who would die without the memory of what life was. I would want to live until my last breath, to dream big things and die like I have simply blacked out from a big life.

“Did you hear me?” my mom asks.

“Huh? Did you say something?”

“Where did your mind go, just now?”

“Nowhere. What do you need? Is it Asia?”

“Winter, I was asking about your day. Yours.”

“Oh. Oh, I actually got a letter from UCT.”

“Really? Did you get in?”

“Of course.”

She rushes and smashes herself into me in a tight hug.

“Oh, my God. I am so proud of you.”

When she lets me go, she stops and looks at me like she is about to start crying. I know that look.

“You break my heart, Winter. How do you not tell us something like this?”

“I was going to...”

“Did you tell Asia?”

“Not yet.”

“You should tell her, in fact...” She walks away from me and begins to shout, “Winter got into UTC. She is going to be a surgeon.”

“It’s UCT, Mom,” I say.

I hear the whole house erupt in cheers and congratulations. My dad comes running from his office and smashes into me harder than Mom did.

“I knew you would get in. You are my daughter after all,” he says proudly.

“Thanks, Dad.”

For a moment it feels good to be the centre of attention, but I don’t hear her voice. I move toward the living room, where I left her. Dad follows and hangs his hand over my shoulder, saying something about how I am going to be the best surgeon in the world. I need to escape his grasp. I need this happiness to stop. I make it off his embrace casually, just before I come into view of Asia. She looks at me and smiles, but her smile does not quite touch her eyes.

“Sven? What about you, buddy?” Dad asks.

“Oh, I got into WITS.”

“Wait, what? They took you and not me?” I say.

“Dude, my results are better than yours.”

“By one point!”

“That’s my boy!”

“Sven did what?” Mom asks from the kitchen.

“He got into SWIT,” Dad says and laughs as he hugs Sven.

“It’s WITS, Mom,” Sven says, laughing. Dad drags Sven toward Mom, teasing her about having verbal dyslexia.

I want to laugh, but my eyes have shifted to Asia. She has a sweet little painful smile on her face.

“Ash, you okay?”

“When did you get the letter?” she asks softly.

“Yesterday.”

“All day, and you didn’t tell me. Why?”

I cannot tell her why. I cannot tell her that I don’t want to show her what she will never get to experience for herself. Born two years after Sven and I, and having been sick most of her life, it seems unfair that she never gets to experience what we do.

“I wanted to tell everyone at dinner. Sorry,” I say.

“Well, congratulations. I am proud of you, Sis.”

She flashes me the most beautiful smile. Looking at her, I think I have been withholding reasons for her to smile. Have I been building this black wall with her, for her? I sit on the couch next to her chair.

“What would you like to be when you grow up?” I ask.

She looks at me, and I watch the smile slowly fade.

“What?” she says so quietly, the word breaks.

“Come on, Ash, what would you like to be?”

The pain in her face makes me regret asking the question. She turns away from me.

“Sven. Sven!” she calls. “Can you take me to my room?”

“Hey, I can do that,” I say.

“Sven, please.”

Sven comes in. He looks confused, but he does as he is asked, and I hang back. I messed up. What was I thinking?

“Sven, bring Asia to the table. Dinner is ready, everyone,” Mom says.

Asia can barely look at me at dinner, and I can barely take my eyes off her. I barely hear anything my family is talking about. I watch my mom help feed her like it’s natural to feed a 15-year-old. I look away, trying my best to stop imagining the blankness she sees.

“When do you leave, Winter?” Mom asks.

My eyes shift to Asia, and she is looking at me like she already knows my answer.

“She is gonna want to wait for me to die, Mom; don’t let her. It’s taking me longer than I expected, but it’s happening.”

“Ash!” Mom hisses.

I panic, leave the table, and head for my room. Dad follows behind me. I wipe off tears quickly when he knocks. He pushes the door cautiously, enters, and sits next to me on the bed.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Did you know all she sees is black? She says she has no future. She says she is waiting to die, Dad.”

“I know, honey.”

I snap my neck toward him.

“You do? And we are doing nothing? Dad, I know she is not going to miraculously recover, but...”

“You don’t believe in miracles anymore?” he interjects.

“Dad...”

“You used to call everything a miracle. One time, Sven broke his arm, and the day he took off his cast, you screamed, “It’s back in place; it’s a miracle.””

“Clearly I was stupid.”

‘No, honey. You had faith in something bigger than yourself or a cast. Medicine will never be enough without faith, honey. I hope you find it again.”

“Dad, this is not about me. Asia has no faith left.”

“And you will help her regain it, but you can’t do that if you don’t believe.”

“Do you, Dad? Do you believe she can recover?”

“I believe anything is possible, and sometimes the miracle is not recovery.”

He rubs my back softly as he gets up. “I’ll bring you your food...or you could come back to the table with me.”

He flashes me a sweet smile that gets me every time. After dinner, when the house is quiet, I go to Asia’s room. She is lying on her back, looking at the ceiling. I lie next to her.

“Wouldn’t you rather be outside watching the stars?” I ask.

“I’m cold.”

“Oh, should I get you an extra blanket?”

“No.”

“Ash, I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I leave in six weeks.”

“Plenty of time for me to die.”

I want to dispute, tell her to stop speaking like that, but I don’t.

“Yeah. Do you want to be buried or cremated?”

She turns her neck toward me, then back to the ceiling.

“Buried.”

“Why?”

“Dust to dust. Is that not how it goes?”

“Okay. How about your epitaph? Let me guess...Heaven smells like the rain.”

From the corner of my eye, I see her smile.

“Or, I lived a thousand lives in my head.”

The smile fades, but she does not throw me out, and that is a good sign, I suppose. I take it as an invitation to rebuild her faith as Dad has said.

“Ash, if you were to do anything before you die, what would it be?”

“I don’t want to do anything, Win.” Her tone is quiet and cold. I am losing her again. I try to sound as cheerful as I can.

“Why not? You still have life in you, you know...”

“Winter, stop it, please!”

“Stop what? Hoping that you will realize that you aren’t in the grave yet? Yes, you are dying, but you are not dead yet. Why do you insist on living your life like you are already dead?” I snap. It is a mistake.

“Can you please leave my room?”

“Ash...”

“Please.”

“Okay.”

At the door, I linger. I don’t like leaving things like this with her. I fear that she might die in her sleep, angry at me.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. Goodnight. I love you.”

She does not say it back, but she looks at me and smiles without showing her teeth.

I feel like punching a wall. Why does this hurt so much?

Every morning I check on her first. She is usually awake when I go to her room. She smiles and says good morning, but this morning I find her facing away from the door. I don’t say anything, but I get this feeling that she is awake and simply ignoring me.

As the day breaks, as movement begins to fill the house, she gravitates towards everyone but me. She refuses my help. She refuses to go to the park. As days go by, Asia begins to sleep in more. She does less and less of what she used to do. No more reading, no more T.V. The black wall begins to feel like a physical thing, separating her from the world...from me. A week goes by, and the house feels like a wake. I hate how everyone seems to have accepted her death before it happens.

In the middle of the night, I enter her room. She is sleeping. I sit at the edge of her bed and she does not shift.

“I got dumped today. I thought I was going to marry him, you know. I always imagined we would get married and you would be my maid of honour. Well, now I have to get a boyfriend first. Do you know what he dumped me for? Apparently I am too controlling,” I say to her sleeping body. I pause, waiting for a little movement, but she remains still. “Well, there’s that. I hope when you fall in love one day, it is with someone who will love every part of you.”

I sit there and breathe, listening to her breathe. Then get up to leave. She shifts, but she does not sound awake. I am glad because I don’t think she would appreciate all that. Every night after, I go into her room in the middle of the night and use her as my diary. I tell her my drama and my hopes for her. I give her unwarranted advice and leave. In the day, she still ignores me and still does nothing.

In the early hours, two days before I am due to leave for school, I go to her room. It is just after 5 am. I am late today. I should have already left her room in this hour. I knock lightly and open. My heart sinks when I don’t find her. She is always in her bed when I get here. I suddenly feel suffocated, like it’s my world that’s ending. I run out to the living room. She is not there. Mom is not up yet. No one is.

“Ash?”

I notice the front door is open. I run to it with hope. Just outside the door, she sits in her wheelchair watching the sunrise. My heart somersaults, makes a sound like it’s beating for the last time, then settles into a rhythm. I have told myself that I simply wanted to see her in the mornings, but it’s always been this, proof of life.

I stop and watch her. She looks peaceful. The pressure in my chest recedes slowly, and I realize for the first time how deeply afraid I am to lose her. One day I will wake up, and she will not be there, and she will not be out here. Perhaps that is what she is doing, detaching herself from the inevitable.

“I can feel you staring at me,” she says.

I take a deep breath and walk over to stand on her side.

“How did you get here?”

“I am not completely invalid, you know. My bones just give out quickly, but I can push myself even if it takes me an hour to get out here.”

“Ash. You should have called me.”

“Well, you were late today, and I wanted to do something for myself for once.”

“Wait, late? You’ve been listening to me?”

“All the gory details of your love life and all that.”

I laugh.

“Oh, God, I am sorry.”

“No. Don’t be. It’s given my mind images. Did you take him back?”

I laugh. “No.”

“Good. He does not deserve you. And you will be a great doctor, Win. Don’t ever doubt that.”

Why does this feel like goodbye?

“Thank you, Ash. It’s beautiful out here.”

“You should have seen it when it was still below the mountains.”

I smile. In my panic, I almost miss that Ash is out looking at the sunrise. She is seeing beauty in something. A blank mind couldn’t see beauty in anything, could it?

“I’m afraid, Win,” she says, almost out of nowhere.

“Afraid of what?”

“That if I hope, if I dream, dying will hurt.”

“I don’t think dying is painful. Being sick is painful, but dying... I don’t even think you know when it’s happening.”

“Yeah, you’ve never died before. I won’t take your word for it.”

I laugh. “But I have blacked out and collapsed. Remember that? My brain simply went blank. I could never tell you anything in between the time I was out and the time I got up. I think if I had not woken up, I wouldn’t know I was dead until I was in heaven or something.”

She thinks about it for a while. “Do you really think there is a heaven?”

“Absolutely. I mean what would be the point of existence? We are born, live however we want, then die...what would be the point of all that? There is more after this life, Ash. I know it.”

She does not say anything, but I can tell she is thinking about it.

“I know what I want to do before I die.”

I never thought I would ever hear these words come from her. It feels like I am breathing for the first time in a long time.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to get baptized.”

I squat before her and hold her hands.

“I think Jesus would say, you have chosen the better part.”

She smiles, and I smile. Tears blur my vision, but I hold them back.

In the afternoon, I watch my younger sister get immersed in the pool at the back of our house, surrounded by a few of our local church elders and us, her family. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever watched. She is dressed in a white dress and no headwrap over her bald head. I have not seen her without a beanie or headwrap in a while. She looks free. Ready. I couldn’t have thought of a better thing to do than this. When she comes up from those waters, it almost looks like she is reborn, like she is coming up to breathe after a long time underwater.

In the middle of the night, on time, I enter her room, and I just know. Deep down, I knew yesterday was her last day. It is too quiet, too peaceful, too still. Asia is gone. I guess you do know when you are dying. I always thought it would hurt so much when she is finally gone, but I find myself, tears running down my cheeks, smiling. In the end, she chose hope. I lie next to her one more time.

“I am going to medical school after your funeral, and I will make one hell of a doctor, because you taught me what it means to hope against hope.”