Everything Will Be Alright

Rays of sunlight stream through the curtains, and, unable to ignore them any longer, I stretch and roll over in the plush white bed. At the sound of my waking, a uniformed butler comes over and offers me a choice of breakfasts. I select one (French toast and strawberries) and start to plan my day. I could go for a swim in the lake… or maybe just sunbathe on its shores. I could go into town later and browse through the shops. There’s a delightful ice cream place in the town square… I could stop by on the way back to the villa. They all sound wonderful, so I shall fit them all into my day. I climb out of my canopy bed and pull on my silk robe. As I head to the wardrobe to choose my clothing for the day, I hear an insistent knocking on my door. Irritated, I ignore it. To my chagrin, the knocking continues. A sense of foreboding grows in the pit of my stomach, though I do not know why. I do not want to open that door. I will just ignore it, I tell myself, but the knocking continues, and gets louder, and louder, until I am unable to ignore it, but still, I try, because if not…

I wake up to the beeping of oxygen machines as the nurse at the door calls out, “Caroline, can I come in?” All in a flash, the canopy bed is gone, the butler is gone, and the villa is gone. In its place are the cramped hospital bed, a too-chipper nurse, and the cracked plaster ceiling of the hospital. I close my eyes for a second more, longing to return to the life in which my biggest worry was my choice of breakfasts. Four months ago, I had no idea what a CT Scan was. Now I have learned that I have a tumor in my brain, and that I have only several months to live.

I do not want to die. I am scared to die. I am scared by the hushed whispers of the doctors outside of my room. It is very serious, they say. She does not have much time left.

I am momentarily overwhelmed by the rush of emotions, as I am every morning, and I struggle to control the rising panic in my chest. I take several deep breaths, and welcome the nurse in so she can administer the morning tests. However, I have not controlled myself as well as usual, and the nurse notices me shaking in her grasp.

“Don’t be afraid,” she tells me, “After this, everything will be alright.” She gives me several shots, and walks out of the room.

I sit thinking about what the nurse said. “After this, everything will be alright.” She was talking to me about my shots, but her words seemed to have much greater meaning. ‘This’ was not just the shot, ‘this’ was my life now. ‘This’ referred to the constant struggle and pain that I had experienced these past few months, the struggle and pain that had never appeared in my former life. After my life, everything will be alright. Suddenly, my fear of death evaporates. Though I am young, and would have had my whole life ahead of me, death would relieve me of my suffering. Death will claim all of us eventually, whether it is now or later, it doesn’t matter. Death would be just like sleeping, and God knows that I need a rest. My bones, my body, and my soul are weary. There is no sense in being afraid of Death. Death is just the last hurdle in the race of life, and afterwards, everything will be alright. So I close my eyes and wait for death to retrieve me.