The Plague

by Kayle Buss

I had never seen someone so peaceful and ready to go. “It’s time” they had told me as I walked into the hallway to say my goodbyes. One last time to think. One last time to reflect. As I walked past the four doors on the left and three doors on the right, nurses and families stood. There were tears from others, but I could not feel them. I was numb. This is not something which people outside in the world see unless they actually experience it firsthand. It is something in which people talk about but never actually go back into. But I for one, remember it vividly.

Nineteen. I was nineteen. He was 85. I remember the flaky skin, the eyes opaque, and the irritation. The negativity. After falling from what would later be known as glioblastoma, it never seemed to even faze him. He tried getting up again, angry we called the ambulance, but he continued to talk and talk until they put him on a stretcher and carried him to the hospital.

We all have time—a certain amount. From science classes, I know that the average human life span is between seventy to eighty years old. Math tells us that this is more than our ancestors before could have survived, but it could be just due to new technology and support systems from people around us. That’s supposedly why he lived to be 85. For one, I think he lived to be 85 because of all the positivity built underneath the negativity. The kindness underneath the stubborn rock. But this, unfortunately, was the part of life in which we knew time was coming.

“Are we ever going to meet each other again?” I asked, my face going numb as the reality began to set in. I had only ever known this feeling once. It was when my first dog had died. Me and Luke were best friends and inseparable. This was like me and the 85-year-old man.

“Of course. The big man is the only one that knows when it is time,” said the man.

“Does your head hurt today?” I asked.

“No. My whole body does,” He laughed.

I had watched him and asked him these questions every day I had gone to see him. As the days grew and time passed, he started to shrink, his face became more pale, and his memory started to fade. On one occasion he had been up all night due to the tumor moving from the back of his brain towards the front of the brain, taking over his body slowly. Like the plague. This time, he had asked me to tell him a story, but this was hard for me as I could not think as there were so many vivid memories of him and I. After thinking for a few minutes, I could then think of what story I wanted him to remember as one of the last times he was himself. Before it took over him. I began.

“It was the night before I went off to college. Tears began streaming down my face because I knew this was the last night I was officially turning into an adult, and this would now be my childhood bedroom. The light blue on the walls, the window frame with a tiny crack on the edge, and the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling which took me back to the time when you bought them for me at seven years old. I could not sleep the whole night because I was so worried about what the future was going to hold, all of the things I needed to carry on my back, my regrets I had for what I should’ve done for my parents instead of having an attitude when I was thirteen, and most of all, the amount of time which school was going to take away from me and you being together on the daily.”

He paused my conversation. I was stunned to still see him closing his eyes and listening. As if the story was taking away some of the pain from the nurses drawing bottles after bottles of blood this morning. I looked at him, thinking once again that there was something they should have done for him. Something I should have done earlier to prevent him from being in the state he was in now. But today was so different.

He spoke to me in a sarcastic tone similar to before it took over him, “What are you looking at? Are you going to just stare or continue the story? You know I don’t have all the time in the world.”

That is what got me. You know I don’t have all the time in the world. 

Continuing with my story, I told him how I didn’t get any sleep that last night. How I was stuck holding onto my dog who I never realized had also gotten so old as well. How her coat was silver whereas before it used to be all white. As I was telling him about waking up that morning and feeling sick to my stomach, I told him about how he was the one to help me get through that day and feel confident this is what I was meant to do in my life.

“I remember when you told me that morning to do what makes you happy. We are all human and only get one life in this world, so we need to do what makes us excited to get up every morning.” He began to smile. Something I feel I never saw him do for the longest time as he always looked so frail, pale, and out of it.

“I always said that. Didn’t I?” He said as if the toxins were slowly starting to take over again.

“Yes. You are always going to be so smart,” I said as I put his cool hand into mine.

Suddenly, I realized that the small hand of the clock had spun in a circle five times and it was already time for visitors to leave. I kissed his forehead and squeezed his hand to tell him I loved him as he fell asleep. Before I let my hand go, he squeezed it and told me “Be strong, live your life, and do what you love. It is only one life we have. I love you.”

When I left, I thought about what he told me on the car drive home. I began to look at the trees a little differently and the sky was a brighter blue than in the past few months. It seemed to be the perfect spring day. It was all perfect until I got home. While eating dinner, my dad got a call. My heart sunk and my stomach began to tighten. The world went numb, and I couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t hear anything. He had gone.

My grandpa was the greatest person to have ever lived. To many he was 85, stubborn, and negative. But to me, he lived to the fullest. He was thoughtful, kind, and would give the shirt off his back to anyone who needed it. Even when he was sick. Even when he was dying. As I walked out into the hallway, I saw the faces of the nurses and doctors. They were trying to comfort me and my family as we just lost the one connection piece to ourselves. The string connected to our hearts that was cut off between the two. We continued to walk and saw other families staring from inside their loved one’s room. What we did to other families when the same thing happened to their loved one.

As I started to get back into the car to leave, I smelled the wet pavement. The sky was grey, and I felt there was no sun to warm the plague I felt moving into my body. But as I looked around, everyone else kept walking, talking, and moving around as if they were on a hamster wheel that kept going and never stopped. The world was revolving around not me, not my family, but itself. Telling me Time doesn’t stop just because you had an incident yourself. It keeps moving. Humans live and die but I keep spinning round and round.

Round and round.

Months went by and I was teaching swimming lessons in the pool. As I was teaching, a white majestic bird flew past. I did not think much of it as I was focused on living and being in the present. It was a dove. My grandfather’s favorite bird. I realized I was living in the moment so much that after I was doing what I loved, I was also being called to do something greater. Something that was going to be my calling. The bird never left the three hours I was in that pool. That is when I looked back and remembered the last thing he said to me. The thing before the plague crept through and took him from the world.

You’re human. You only live once. You are meant to do what humans do. Live. Live to the fullest.