I Love You

“I love you,” he muttered as loud as he could manage.
“I love you, too,” she replied before kissing him through the hospital mask that was stretched across the lower part of her face.
Those words spoke more than anyone could have imagined. They echoed through the small ICU room and into the hearts of the two people standing on the other side of the bed. They watched the woman fight back tears as she gently rested her head on the top of his now bald one.
“I’m going to get my dad,” one observer whispered to the other.
“Go for it,” the man standing next to her muttered in reply.
Slowly, the departing onlooker leaned over the bed to pat the woman gently on the arm before turning to the withered man in the bed. Finding which lump of blankets hid his hand, she patted it. “Bye, Uncle Ric. I’ll be back soon.”
Eyes closed, he let out a barely audible grunt.
Quickly, the observer ripped off the neon yellow, sterile, tie-on gown and shoved it as deep into the immense plastic garbage can as she could. Blue plastic gloves and a yellow hospital mask soon followed. With a little speed, she pulled the door to the isolation room open and left. She was now in the hallway of the ICU, where the sickly patients with immune systems could be easily seen. All those other people who could fight off disease were behind automatic sliding glass doors that were always kept open. Their families didn’t have to make sure the door always clicked shut. Their families didn’t have to put on masks to keep from breathing pathogens into the air.
Sure the patient in the next room was intubated, but he looked vastly better than the man lying in the room she had just exited. The sound of a ventilator crept into her ears as she took a quick glance at the man next door. He had a healthy skin tone that was just a shade short of olive. His short, curly black hair fell back on the pillow and was tucked under one of two long, white bandages that kept the breathing tube in place. He was probably going to make it. Sure he appeared to be in a coma, but he was most likely in a better place than the world of pain the man in the room behind – her uncle was. Anger and grief welled up inside of her, making her turn away from the man behind the open sliding glass doors and the sleep-deprived kin who kept vigil within. She needed to tell her dad it was his turn to see his brother. At almost a run, she took off down the hall and out of the ICU, just going slow enough to allow the receptionist to unlock the door that closed off the ward from the waiting room.

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With bated breath, she counted the rings . . . seven, eight . . .
“Hi, leave your name and nu--” Click.
“Dammit!” she thought savagely. “The one time she doesn’t pick up!”
She pocketed her cell phone to continue staring out of one of the lobby’s picture windows pondering the cruelty of fate. What was the point of having so much technology when you couldn’t contact your “sister” when you needed her most?
Sniffing, she wiped away the tears she had been refusing to let flow. The girl who had gone from strong visitor to envious family member to crying mess hid her face behind one hand as she stared out at York Avenue . . . at the taxis barreling down the avenue, the MTA workers running across the street, the fashionistas decked out in all their high fashion glory. Uptown Manhattan was buzzing as much as it could on a cold, windy, dismal Sunday afternoon. Only it was vastly grayer for the people on her side of the slightly smudged window. Those on the street didn’t have a family member in isolation ICU fighting off a bacterial infection tooth-and-nail. They didn’t have a family member who might die within the week and leave a wife and three little kids behind. Of course, they probably didn’t have a family member who had the same kind of wretched luck as her Uncle Ric.
“Lucky,” she felt herself mumble.
She wasn’t ashamed of the mix of the jealousy, fear, hatred, and pain burning every inch of her body . . . literally making her heart hurt. Yet oddly enough, she was ashamed to cry. She was ashamed to let the world know that she was scared for the sickly uncle, brother, father, cousin, businessman, joker, “strongman” upstairs who might actually die. She was afraid to admit that God might not be listening to the scores of people begging Him to let Enrico Ratti live . . . to let him die an old man at home, not a middle-aged one in a sterile hospital room.
She took a deep, unsteady breath. “There’s still hope. God’ll listen. The Big Guy knows that Aunt Caroline, Anastasia, Jocelyn, and Quinn all need him.”
Absentmindedly, she glanced at her cell phone. It was time to get back upstairs. She wanted to see her uncle again.

******************
A few hours had passed and ICU visiting hours were almost up. Her Aunt Caroline was back in the room with Uncle Ric, standing next to his best friend. Through the medium panel of glass, yet another life-long friend and a total of three family members were staring into the darkening room.
“What did the doctor just tell Caroline?” she whispered to her grim-looking godfather, who was standing beside her.
He paused briefly before speaking, not bothering to take his gaze off  the dying man inside. “She said that Ric was out of options.”
She swallowed hard and looked back at the figure lying on the hospital bed. Uncle Ric looked so weak. The bacteria wouldn’t let him eat, so his weight had dropped to an all-time low thus allowing all to see exactly what bone pushed on skin. What little hair remained was now nearly complete white. His skin had given up most of its original color to a sickly yellow pallor. By far, the worst part of the picture was how weak, how helpless, he looked.
Suddenly, she felt everything crash into her. Every fear, every hidden emotion, every suppressed thought barreled into her like a Mack truck into a guardrail.  Without saying a word, she walked away from the window to find the chapel. It was in that tiny room she pleaded for a miracle to come, for Uncle Ric to be spared. That was the first day in her life where her parents allowed her to pray and sob in peace while they waited just outside the wooden door. It was also the first day in her life that she had ever run out of tears yet still felt the need to cry more.

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Someway, somehow, she had managed to muster up the strength to reenter that dismal room on the 11th floor. Visiting hours had wasted away into “remember whens” and it was time to head back to the other side of the river. She held back tears as she clumsily donned those awful gloves, that horrid gown, that putrid mask.
It was nearly impossible to keep a straight face when she said, “Bye, Uncle Ric. I’ve gotta go, but I’ll be back soon.”
And it took almost all of her strength to beat back tears when she said for the first time, “I love you, Uncle Ric.”
“You could give him a kiss if you want,” Aunt Caroline remarked in a gentle voice.
The now shaking girl managed to choke out a “yes” before going to the other side of the bed. Bending down a little, she gave her dying uncle a kiss on the forehead from behind her mask. Suddenly, it hit her. It could be the last time she would ever see her Uncle Ric alive . . . the last time she might ever give him a kiss goodbye while he was still warm. For the first time since everything had started in January, she understood exactly how her Aunt Caroline felt. Everyday could be the last for Enrico Ratti. The future wasn’t set in stone and every second his heart kept its rhythm was a gift from God.
Reluctantly, she turned away from her uncle. After giving Aunt Caroline a bear hug, she looked her in the eyes for a moment that spoke volumes. It was a moment of complete understanding. It was a moment she knew would echo in her memory forever.     
Stifling tears, she pulled off all of the disposable garments and stuffed them into the garbage can for the fourth time that day. Just before opening the door, she said another, final goodbye to her uncle. Just above the din of ventilators and hospital white noise, she could have sworn she heard him say the word “bye” for the first time that day. She paused. It was the first word he had spoken to her since the previous week.  
“See you later,” she mutter through vision-clouding tears before slipping out into the bright lights of the hallway.
If only she had known that his “goodbye” was a farewell forever. Enrico Ratti would never again see the outside of his hospital room.