Visiting Hours

Jenni hated the hospital. She hated the odours of death and disinfectant, the hustle and bustle of the doctors and patients and the dread surrounding the operating rooms where people danced between life and death. These factors seemed to swirl around her, closing in and causing her to feel a shortness of breath. Irritation welled up, marring her face with a scowl.

“Calm down,” she chided herself. “I can't let mother see me like this.”

Once a week she saw her mother in the hospital. Only once a week, as the hospital was far from where they lived. She did not want to waste that time with her mother by being moody. Thus, she plastered a smile on her face as the door opened. There was her mother. Jenni began talking even before she had sat down in the chair.

“How are you, Mother?”
“I'm fine. Just a little tired. More importantly, how are you holding up?”
“It's OK. I'm a little lonely sometimes without you at night, but I get by.”
“That's good to hear. You need to hang in there.”

Jenni's mother gave a weak smile. Suddenly, tears appeared in her eyes. Jenni leaned over and grasped her mother's hands as she broke out into sobs. A part of Jenni pondered how her strong, cheerful mother could have been broken into such a frail, emotional person. It was the cancer, of course. Jenni was brought back to reality by her mother's words.

“Terminal! With no hope of recovery...all our plans, our time together...”
“Hush, Mother. Let's not think about it.”
“How can I not?”

Indeed, how could they not think about it? Jenni wondered. She began to massage her mother's hands. They had been beautiful hands, still strong enough to lift Jenni off the ground at her seventeen years of age, yet delicate enough to dance gracefully over the keys of their piano. Jenni had admired these hands ever since she was a child, for it had seemed that there was nothingthey couldn't do. They were thin and bony now, for even they had not escaped the decline her mother had gone through as the tumour had advanced its deadly progress. The sick quagmire of emotions caused by the illness had eaten her mother alive.

Jenni struggled once again to maintain her composure. The familiar shortness of breath was back in her chest, strengthened by the involuntary sadness building up inside her.

“How much longer do we have together?”
“Three weeks, at most. The doctors said it may come sooner...”

A silence grew between them as the seconds stretched into minutes. The light coming in through the window weakened and changed colour, basking the floor in the fading spectrum of sunset. As the two occupants of the room made occasional conversation, the suffocating white walls stood witness to the strained atmosphere of unspoken thoughts.

Darkness came. The rustling din of the hospital wing settled into its customary nighttime hum. Jenni did not want to part with her mother, but she knew she must. One of them had to continue her life without the other. She squeezed her mother's hands.

“Mother, it's time for you to go home. Visiting hours are over.”

Jenni lay back on her bed, and closed her eyes to the world of the living.