If Tomorrow Never Comes

They bring her here every morning. I am supposed to keep her company. She doesn’t talk anymore- we just sit together by a huge window in the hostel. Her name I do not know but we share a similar story. We are both prisoners of the same fate. Our children have left us here as they have no need for us anymore. We are dispensable to them now. Left behind like toys that are no longer loved.

This morning was no different. They wheeled her chair over to the window where I spend my days. Every morning she looks out the window as if she’ll see something new. But she won’t. It’s not an interesting view out that window. Just a small tree in a concrete courtyard. But it’s the best view this place has. Harsh white walls and polished concrete floors surround us every day. Why not enjoy the one tree we can see?

Like every other day since I met her, she faces the window with her eyes closed and her face composed. She listens for the sounds of birds. She hears them and a small smile tugs at the sides of her lips. She is happy. Little does she know that those sounds are coming from speakers in the courtyard. As I study her body, I realise the changes that have occurred since the first time we met- less than a two months ago.

Since the beginning of this month her health started to deteriorate. She could no longer walk and was reduced to sitting in a wheelchair- subjected to calling on staff to take her places in the hostel. Soon the rest of her body followed on this rapid decline and she started to become a quieter, more withdrawn person.

When we first met, she was still a frail old woman. But she had strength. Not physical, rather, mental. Now she has lost all hope. The eyes that once glowed with happiness are now just deep vats of dullness. Her once porcelain skin with pink undertones has gone. Her skin is almost transparent with dark purples and blues coming through. As I studied her face I notice that her face was no longer composed. Her eyes were still closed like always. But now instead of being closed in contentment they were closed in agony. Her body had now lost all health. Her clothes clung to her thin frame and her chest heaved in an unnaturally fast manner. Her small, fragile hands once nimble enough to sew things now clutched the handles of the wheelchair so hard that her skin is stretched and veins bulge. Her inner pain was on display. This once proud woman with dignity was reduced to this. I remember the days when she would tell stories of her grandchildren’s escapades, her husband’s role in the war and the weddings of all her children. I would listen and tell stories of my own. Not anymore.

There were still so many things that I wanted to tell her. But since her decline, she has stopped speaking. Just choosing to sit at the window and listen to the ‘birds’. I still wanted to talk. Tell her things but every day I felt intimidated by the idea of talking to her, knowing that she wouldn’t reply. I didn’t want to tell her things if she didn’t want to listen. ‘Tomorrow’ I’d promise myself, ‘I’ll tell her tomorrow.’ I still haven’t. I knew that we had barely met but she spoke unlike all the other people I had met here. She spoke about the past as an enjoyable memory and her children as the pinnacles of her life. She didn’t hate them for leaving her here. Many people here did. She felt hurt and saddened by it but she could never hate. Not her children. Never. I felt the same way about my family. I loved then with all my heart and I could never hate them. Even though they hadn’t visited me in over 3 years.

It was nearing afternoon now. I knew what that meant. She would be taken away to be force fed. Since her rapid decline in health, she could no longer eat with the rest of us in the dining hall. After lunch, I wouldn’t see her again. She would be carted off to one of the many rooms in this labyrinth to complete who knows what tests, diagnostics and medical checkups.

I sighed as I saw the attendant coming to wheel her away. Again, my few hours with her I had wasted.

‘Susan. It’s time to go to lunch now,’ the attendant said a loud clear voice.

Susan. Her name is Susan. We share more than I thought in common. My name is Susan too. As I watched as the attendant wheeled her off towards a feeding room I promised myself that I’d tell her tomorrow. I’d tell her tomorrow that we shared the same name. But then it occurred to me, in her current state, would they let her out here again? What if they don’t? What if tomorrow never comes?