Holding Hands
It was a new day, a new beginning for the others, but for him it was another breath, full of bottled oxygen. In his youth, loosing hair because of chemotherapy and completely sunken cheek bones was the last thing he could even imagine.
Every time that he turned during sleep, chills of pain would grip his entire body, and tears would race down his ears as he cried himself to sleep. And another night of limitless miseries impregnated a new day. How is a person in this stature supposed to keep the flame of hope burning in him despite the fact that he is has been diagnosed with one of the most fatal diseases in the world ; cancer. Another puff of oxygen, his vision started to blur, and as the light making its way from the window filled his face, all he could ask for was to be put out of all this agony. The man suffered a loss of blood, bone and mineral density as well as the survival instinct and a pinch of hope. The instinct that keeps you going, moving on in life and ahead of others. Like that moment when a child decides to use heaps of paper to make a paper boat in rains, even though he knows that the boat is bound to be razed by the splatter of the raindrops.
Children, they can just usher a storm beside you in the littlest fraction of a second. Ever thriving with energy and enthusiasm, children never back down. What is a child dragged into the claws of despair by cancer? A child who is not ready to give away even a minute of the joy he gets by jumping puddles of mud. The nurse drew the curtains, to make way for the child into the bed beside the old man. The child had brought along a binocular, a slingshot and a little handy comb. The old man looked at the child as he adjusted his oxygen mask to lie on his side. The child did not keep still for a moment, he began fidgeting with his hospital wear, and scrubbing his newly shaved head. Laughing and scratching his own bare head the old man asked the child as to why he had got a comb when he had absolutely no hair left, the child smiled at the old man and looked away. The man turned to his other side and began to stare at the ceiling. A new day began with the chirping of a blue jay outside the window, the old man woke up, so did the child. It was time for radiation therapy. After they had come from the therapy the old man again began to ask the child about the comb, but then again the child smilingly refused to answer.
Days went by, even weeks passed in the face of silence where the man once sought to look for the sound of the echo of his own pain that lingered in each breath that he inhaled with hope and exhaled with pain. He became highly ignorant of his surroundings, as the only companion of his; the boy had been shifted to a special unit of the hospital. The question of the bald boy carrying a comb haunted and daunted him. One day the old man was in the hospital lawn sitting on a wheelchair, he had fallen asleep while gazing at the flora, and just then someone tapped the shoulder of the man. It was boy who claimed he knew the man, but the old man failed to recognise him. Just then the boy showed the old man his little blue comb, and that very second the man realised that this was the same boy who was frail and bald a few weeks back. He had thick, shiny hair now. The boy said to the old man – “I never lost hope, and now you never will.” As he placed the comb into the old man’s lap.
It was a new day, a new beginning for the others, but for him it was another breath, full of bottled oxygen. In his youth, loosing hair because of chemotherapy and completely sunken cheek bones was the last thing he could even imagine.
Every time that he turned during sleep, chills of pain would grip his entire body, and tears would race down his ears as he cried himself to sleep. And another night of limitless miseries impregnated a new day. How is a person in this stature supposed to keep the flame of hope burning in him despite the fact that he is has been diagnosed with one of the most fatal diseases in the world ; cancer. Another puff of oxygen, his vision started to blur, and as the light making its way from the window filled his face, all he could ask for was to be put out of all this agony. The man suffered a loss of blood, bone and mineral density as well as the survival instinct and a pinch of hope. The instinct that keeps you going, moving on in life and ahead of others. Like that moment when a child decides to use heaps of paper to make a paper boat in rains, even though he knows that the boat is bound to be razed by the splatter of the raindrops.
Children, they can just usher a storm beside you in the littlest fraction of a second. Ever thriving with energy and enthusiasm, children never back down. What is a child dragged into the claws of despair by cancer? A child who is not ready to give away even a minute of the joy he gets by jumping puddles of mud. The nurse drew the curtains, to make way for the child into the bed beside the old man. The child had brought along a binocular, a slingshot and a little handy comb. The old man looked at the child as he adjusted his oxygen mask to lie on his side. The child did not keep still for a moment, he began fidgeting with his hospital wear, and scrubbing his newly shaved head. Laughing and scratching his own bare head the old man asked the child as to why he had got a comb when he had absolutely no hair left, the child smiled at the old man and looked away. The man turned to his other side and began to stare at the ceiling. A new day began with the chirping of a blue jay outside the window, the old man woke up, so did the child. It was time for radiation therapy. After they had come from the therapy the old man again began to ask the child about the comb, but then again the child smilingly refused to answer.
Days went by, even weeks passed in the face of silence where the man once sought to look for the sound of the echo of his own pain that lingered in each breath that he inhaled with hope and exhaled with pain. He became highly ignorant of his surroundings, as the only companion of his; the boy had been shifted to a special unit of the hospital. The question of the bald boy carrying a comb haunted and daunted him. One day the old man was in the hospital lawn sitting on a wheelchair, he had fallen asleep while gazing at the flora, and just then someone tapped the shoulder of the man. It was boy who claimed he knew the man, but the old man failed to recognise him. Just then the boy showed the old man his little blue comb, and that very second the man realised that this was the same boy who was frail and bald a few weeks back. He had thick, shiny hair now. The boy said to the old man – “I never lost hope, and now you never will.” As he placed the comb into the old man’s lap.
