By Trevor Abbud
A human’s heart will beat an average of three billion times in one lifetime. I often marveled at what happens the instant that heart beats its last rap. Where do we go? Was it the same for every person? Was there an afterlife? God? Did we come back to this life, recycled into some other form of life? Was life an endless line or a giant wheel? When I lost my best friend, these were the questions that gorged my heart.
I pictured myself as the sun, living high above the kingdom of white, puffy clouds, rising and setting, caught within the perfect order of life. I was at the point in my life where my days had become a pattern. It was a good pattern, with changes coming few and far between, but when they did come, they were good changes.
And then one day I was fooled. Every moment that passes, every single speck of time has potential. Whether time’s ability will be used for normalcy, fortune or disaster is up to fate, I suppose. It was on a clear, blue spring day—what appeared to be a normal day like any other—when a moment of disaster, turned into a lifetime of sorrow. It was on that spring day that my best friend found out he would not be around much longer.
The doctors gave him six months. I was not fine with him leaving, but there might be a way I could accept it. If I knew he was happy, then maybe. So, I began to pray.
During this time, I often wondered when the disease snuck into his body. When did that moment first pass? One second, he was fine, a young strong heart beating away like a rock and roll concert, and then he became sick. Is that how it works? You drive along the road of life, it’s smooth, level pavement. You travel mile after mile, the windows down and life’s warm breeze kissing your face. Then, as sudden as death itself, a road bump emerges. Your entire life has changed forever. Your life swerves off the road and you find yourself buried in a ditch. You know that nothing will ever be the same. Well, that’s how it was for my best friend and me.
I made sure to visit my best friend every day while he was in the hospital. I can’t explain the terror that was inside him during his final days. He was so scared but strong. And looking back on it now I think his fear forced me to be strong too. It wasn’t always easy to see him and not cry. It was difficult to stay positive around him even though I knew things weren’t getting any better. But I needed to be a pillar of strength for his little crumbling body. I forced a smile on my face and saved my crying for when I watched him sleep.
I would close my eyes and bow my head in prayer each night, not sure whom I was praying to or exactly what I was praying for. Peace, I guess, for both of us. After a while he held my hand during my nightly petition.
I remember not too long before he left, he said something to me after our pray time that speared my heart with a double edge dagger of anguish and steadfast.
“It all be good Daddy. I be safe.” He said with a glowing tint of conviction on his paper thin and white face. It wasn’t these cliché words that sprung a seed of hope inside my soul; it was the cord of his voice, the keen sense of belief sparkling from his eyes. He didn’t just believe, he knew.
But when your best friend in the world loses his golden-brown curls, bedridden and frail, and the youth in his bones siphoned out by the disease, it is easy to lose hope.
It was on one Friday afternoon I was lucky to get out of work early. A couple weeks earlier, the monstrous disease inside my best friend had sunk its teeth deeper into him. He was in the middle of intense treatment. So, I took this opportunity to perhaps put a smile on his face. I arrived at the hospital shortly after noon.
I was a familiar face around the clinic. On every floor of the building, the elevator or stairs bring you to a small hallway where you must walk through a secured doorway to enter that level. You must press a button attached to the wall to buzz the security guard and he will let you in. On that day, the security guard on duty was a gentleman named Arthur Reynolds. Over the last half a dozen months I’ve spent in and out of this facility I had become almost like friends with Arthur. Everything about him, from his stance to his cadence to his features, gave off an aroma of optimism. His chocolate hue and his high cheekbones gave him the features of a man who was keen to the verge of laughter. The luminous ceiling fixtures caused his gray speckled scalp to look like a salted caramel nut candy. His light brown eyes were soft and warm, and sensitive.
“What up Arty, how we doing today?” I asked.
“Livin’ the dream my man!” He exclaimed in a squeaky, high-pitch cry and offered me a fist of big brown knuckles. “How’s Junior?”
I sighed and clenched my teeth. “Fighting,” I answered in a quivering voice that I hope was camouflaged by my faux confidence.
“Like a little Sugar Ray!” He cheered. “That little fighter has got heart Tom. Better yet, he’s got soooul.” He strung out the last word as if he was singing a hymn. “Go head on in. Been quiet for most of the day. Some kind’a hurly-burly ‘fore. But it all just mellowed out. Be honest wit’ you I was having me’self a nap.”
“Thank you, Art.” I said and headed for my best friend’s room. I felt the edges of my brow pulled down with confusion as I walked away from the guard. hurly-burly…
“Can we help you, sir?” an unfamiliar voice spoke from behind the long horseshoe desk.
I didn’t know either of the two nurses seated behind the receptions desk. “I’m just here for,” I raised my right wrist to show them my wristband from the front desk and they offered me a phony smile and a rough draft of a head nod and then went back to watching some video on of their phones. Looking ahead from the nurses’ station there was a hallway leading left and one leading right. Each of these hallways was shaped like an upside-down L. I turned left towards room number 444. My best friend’s room was the last room on the corner before the short arm of the L cut right.
This was where I had to begin to pray. His chubby baby cheeks he once had were now sunken and stretched like a rough pelt spread on a tanning rack, the flesh on his arms and around his neck choked his bones. He looked like an old man, but my best friend never got to live his life.
After my wife died during childbirth, I was the last person he had. I knew from the moment he was born that I wanted to be more than just his father. I wanted to be his best friend. My son, Thomas had so much of his mother in his eyes. Those ice blue eyes that seemed to be able to penetrate your soul. Having to see my little baby boy slowly wither away to nothing was unbearable. I’m not sure which was worse, the quick cutthroat death of my wife that happened in one small heartbeat, or the slow, torturing death of my five-year-old son.
Help, I prayed in my heart.
Help! I screamed in my heart.
When I was about six doors away from his room, I saw the dark crack under the door brighten. I quickened my step, anxious to see him when he had some strength, strength enough to at least switch on his room’s light from the remote. I took a deep breath before turning the knob.
It didn’t happen fast. It was the way things seemed to move in a dream. One small thing took place in what seemed like forever to occur.
My first emotion was fear. I feared what I saw. “Get back in bed Tommy! What are you doing up?”
“Playing Pop. Catch!” He bounced a blue rubber ball to me.
“Thomas, where’d you get this from?” I asked. My mind’s processing was one step behind each action and move.
“A lady. Hey, throw Dad,” he said and held up his hands. I threw the ball back underarm. It was the first time I played catch with my son in almost a year.
“What are you doing out of bed? Wait, what lady.”
“Playing,”
“A nurse?”
“Noooo,” he said shaking with a smile that was on the verge of giggling.”
I wanted to laugh with him. I wanted to cry too. I said, “You should be in bed. What happened to your IV? How—”
“I better Daddy.” He ran his left hand, the one that wasn’t holding his blue rubber ball, through a full, curly head of almond hued hair. “My ‘air is back”
Hot, stinging tears of fright and joy pierced the corners of my eyes. My jaw unhinged. I could only imagine what insane view my face contorted into. Seeing it, my best friend consoled me. It was as if our roles had reversed. I was looking up to him. And that made sense.
How had I not noticed his hair?
“No cry-cry Pop, no cry-cry. I feel no boo-boos. The big clouds make the pain go all bye-bye now,” he said and bounced the ball to himself on the hard floor. His face shone with joy.
Drops of fire ran down my cheeks; I saw through prisms of tears. I lost my voice and could not make out any words but only moan in astonishment. My legs failed and I dropped to my knees. My heart was racing so fast that it didn’t seem to be beating at all but rather it was one constant surge, like a waterfall compared the break of an incoming tide.
I reached out my shaking arms towards my son. In this small moment, I thought about other small ticks of memories. Pushing my son on the swings. Teaching him how to ride a bike—something we never got to finish. Jumping on the trampoline. Jump Pop! Jump! All the kites we flew—or attempted to fly—at the beach. Taking naps on the couch. His glowing face on Christmas morning. His first day at school.
And then I thought about his precious little smile that had dwindled since he got sick and ever seeing his face wear a smile again, never seeing his face again.
“Can I have a hug?” I pleaded.
My best friend reacted immediately. It was as if he had been waiting this whole time for me to do this. He tossed the blue rubber ball to the side and leaped into the embrace of his father’s arms. I held him. Flesh and soul. Heart and mind. In my arms. I would never let go. I hugged my best friend. I took in my son’s love and for the first time sense her death, I felt my wife by my side again.
“It’s gone, Daddy. The pain is far-far ‘way!” He urged. His little boy’s voice was so sincere it made my heart ache and strengthen in a bittersweet jibe.
“I love you, Thomas. I don’t want you to go away. You’ll always be my best friend forever, little guy.” I said with a cracking voice that was on the edge of crying and laughter.
“I’ll see you soon P—”
“Sir? Mr. Shaw? Who let you in here?”
I spun my head around towards the nurse’s tight, small voice.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” she said tonelessly. It was one of the nurses on duty.
I twisted my head back around to my son. “I love you Pop.” He was gone but I could still feel the weight of his soul in the protection of my arms. Time slowed down, maybe it even stopped. If I wasn’t so confused, I might not have been able to speak. After an unknown space of time, I said, “Arty let me in.”
“Who?” She grunted.
She cracked the door open wider, enough to let herself in. I’m not sure I had ever seen her before. She walked over to me. I kept snapping my head in small jerks, looking back and forth from the nurse to my best friend that wasn’t there.
Somewhere common sense found its way through my puzzled mind. “I mean Arthur. Arthur Reynolds… the guard on this floor. And the two nurses at the front desk, I showed them my wristband.” My voice sounded dull and far away.
“Those two airheads don’t know a damn thing.” She paused and stared at me as if I was a lost puppy. “You need to come with me. You are Thomas Shaw Senior?” She asked and extended a hand down to me as I nodded. “Let’s go see the doctor. We need to talk to you. It’s about your son.”
And then I knew. The weight captured in my arms was gone. He was gone. My pain was beyond any more tears. I hesitated for a moment before I slowly let her help me up. The nurse was escorting me out of the room when a thought spiked my mind. I glanced back and prayed to God, I would see it.
“Mr. Shaw, please,”
I didn’t. It was gone too…
No!
I broke free from her grip and ran to the bed.
Nothing.
I looked underneath. On the floor sat my best friend’s blue rubber ball.
I believe there is a place high in the sky. A place where you can walk on the clouds and the sun will never set. This place knows no pain. And this place dwells in one eternal moment of happiness. I hold my best friend’s blue rubber ball in my hand, I squeeze it, and it’s real. I can’t wait to return it to my son one day and have a catch. I’ll have to thank the beautiful lady for giving it to him. I’m pretty sure I’ve met her before too.
I believe.
About the Author:
Trevor Abbud is an up-and-coming author. He discovered his passion for writing at a young age. Embracing this passion, he transitioned into writing with a serious commitment. His tales are thrilling and a cathartic release, helping him navigate and channel his experiences with mental health challenges. Trevor’s work has found homes in publications such as Nat 1 Publishing, GNU Journal, Chantwood Magazine, The Broke Bohemian, The Hungry Chimera, and Running Wild Publishing & Rize Press.