3 AM

3 AM

It’s 3 am I have so many thoughts and feelings.
The silence of the room broken only by sound emanating from the heart monitor,
your tiny heart so loud as it beats like a drum to announce your arrival.
In this room we are safe beyond the door a world that is all new to you.

Its 3 am in your safe cocoon you are unaware of the spectacle of the next 12 hours.
You float in your womb content with your world you have come to know.
Excitement was the word we used to describe our feelings. If we were honest we were feeling fear and nervousness.
It was only the day before the Doctors were telling us “The odds were against you.”
Profoundly these words would be the obstacle of your brief life.

its 3 am a time where the world seemed to stop.
A time that was just for us.
Tonight is our first night sharing this time, the still calm night with only a machine amplifying your little heart.
Tonight my thoughts are to your future.
You will spend the day as the topic of a debate “the odds were against you.”
You teach me my first lesson about you that day to not underestimate your strength.

Its 3 am you are hungry and you need food.
Stubbornly mom keeps trying but it is not working.
We cave and feed you a bottle.
Your Mom tried so hard but could not give you what you needed.
This begins our time together.
So tired I come to complain of this 3am time you have chosen for us.
Unaware of how special this time was and will always be.

Its 3 am the beeps of the machine remind me of our first night together.
So much has happened today.
You are so small to have a grapefruit size tumour taken out of your body.
Now you begin a battle of chemo and radiation to rid your body of a cancer they finally found.
“The odds are against you” they sat us down to tell us.

Its 3 am you want to go for a walk.
Off we go to see the vending machine again so you can plug coins in it like a game.
We pass the children’s ward school to look at the art work and older children’s projects.
Stroller and IV poll we walk the halls.
A place of pain and suffering is so different in the middle of the night.
We spend this time together because you have made it possible.
You will not take no for an answer you want a time in the hospital where no one looks at you different because of your bald head and IV pole.

Its 3 am your fever is down.
It took all evening cold compresses and sponge baths but it worked.
I lie here awake thankful.
I would never think I would be so thankful for the nurse that took the time to help, thankful for the ideas and quick responses of your fever.

It’s 3 am time for your bath.
You need to wash the chemo drug off your skin that you are sweating out or it will burn you.
This was not our special time and we both did not appreciate the intrusion to our special time.
Your eyes were not the same this time you didn’t understand why our special time was not peaceful and alone.
The nurse being so forceful in her desire to get you into a bath, cold and confused you stood looking at me wondering why we were doing this to you.

Its 3 am the silence of the room broken with the sound of your end of life breathing.
I lay thinking of that first night we spent together.
How I could not see you but I knew you were there.
How excited I was.
I wish I could take back all the negative feelings I had for you wanting to have this time together.
Tonight you need to go we will never have this time together again.
Tonight will be our last night together.

Its 3 am with your last breath you are free.
Free from the treatments and Hospitals.
Free from the pokes and the prods.
Free from the body that caused you such pain.
You knew I couldn’t do it.
Your last gift to me freeing me from the burden of increasing that last dose of morphine

Its 3 am I wake up like an internal alarm every night since you took your last breath.
I am free from the burdens of our 3 am times you wanted for us.
Ten years later I still wake up wondering.
Tonight will you come back to have our 3 am time together again

BDalke 01/15/12