Stroked
Stroked
Mr. Beener's nurse, Amanda, sat right next to him, as the beeping of machines sounded like a NY city morning during rush hour. The uncomfortable chair felt like it had been there since the hospital opened in 1974. The curtain was slightly closed just the view of the moonlight coming through the broken shades was visible. Amanda held his hand as he looked worried that he would not make it through the night. She stroked her hand across his face and forehead and said that it would be ok and she would sit with him until her shift would end. She had done this routinely for the last three nights when he was admitted. He smiled softly as the gentle strokes felt like when he was younger, and his mother would sit and stroke his hair if he wasn't feeling well or if he had a bad dream. He wasn't scared of dying; he knew the outcome with this and had been dealing with this for a while and was able to deal with it. His wife was unable to cope, she had not come to terms with him having cancer at this age and this good in health. His wife didn't even come to see him in the hospital; the woman just wanted his money.
His daughter Tiffany was on a red-eye flight to come to be with him before his demise. She received the call from the nurse, she had taken his phone while he was napping and let her know that it wouldn't be long before cancer took him. He had spoken about her telling the nurse that even though their relationship was rocky and that he should have been more adjusted to her when she had come home from college and said that she was getting married and moving out west. He wished that he had the opportunity to tell her that he was proud of her and that he was sorry for the way that he reacted, especially in front of her soon-to-be husband. Amanda let him know that it was not too late and that he should call her. He told her that he was afraid to talk to her; she wasn't even aware that he was sick. As Tiffany was about to hang up the phone she had thanked the nurse numerous times telling her that she was on her way to see him. It was the last flight out of Wisconsin to JFK and was arriving at 3 am.
Amanda's shift was almost over when Mr. Beener's daughter called and said that she was downstairs in the lobby. She had the nurse that was at the desk run down and get her she was not about to leave his side. Tears filled the eyes of Tiffany and Amanda as they looked at each other and noticed that her father had a smile on his weak face. His heavy eyes peered open after he heard his daughter's voice and you could see tears fill his hazel eyes. The machines beeping were drowned out by the words of I'm sorry and I love you. Amanda stood in the doorway and Mr. Beener thanked her with the utmost gratitude. Her blue eyes filled with tears as she knew that he was at peace with his daughter and with himself.
It wasn't long after that Amanda had gone home to her tiny one-bedroom apartment on the east side of the village that she got a text from Tiffany saying that she was so incredibly grateful that she had given her the chance to sit with her father and talk with him. She had no plans on leaving his side and she replied that she would be in an hour before her shift, just to sit and talk with him and to tell him that she had a new Walt Whitman book to read to him. She had been reading poetry by his favorite poet and though never a big fan of poetry she enjoyed that more than any other book that she had ever picked up. Her doorbell rang at 9 in the morning and figured that her neighbor had locked herself out again since she held onto a spare key for the elderly woman. Instead, it was a very large bouquet of flowers with a card that read My Captain the best nurse a guy could ever have. She put her head into the flowers and breathed in all the smells of the arranged flowers that brightened up her Thursday morning.
Amanda arrived at the hospital an hour early just like she said she would with the book in hand. Tiffany had been sleeping in that wretched chair and there was no way that she was comfortable so she gently woke her and told her to go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat and some coffee and that the bathroom downstairs was a great place to wash up. Don't worry my dear she said I will read to your father and make sure that he is at ease. With a kiss on the cheek she told her dad that she would be back soon and that she was in good hands, he agreed and a big smile filled his tired face. She had thanked him for the beautiful flowers that he and his daughter had so generously gifted her; she told them how amazing they had looked and how aromatic her small apartment was with that bouquet. Amanda opened the book and started reading Song of Myself, one of Whitman's poems. His eyes were closed and he could feel her breath in his ear as she leaned in. Tiffany was at the doorway sipping on her coffee and watching her father lie there with a smile on his face. She had not seen him smile in over a year. Tiffany was still waiting on a text from her mother letting her know that she had come home and that she was with her dad almost seven hours later and not even a hello.
Amanda finished up with the poems and stroked his face with the back of her hand. She told Tiffany that his time was coming soon, she had seen a lot of death in her nursing career. Tiffany sat next to him with her head on his chest and felt the labored breathing like a clock that the battery was about to run out. She told him how much he loved him and was once again sorry she was when she took off. Mr. Beener had taken his final breath a half an hour later as the machine alarms had been really deafening; he had signed a DNR when he was admitted to the hospital, he wanted to go in peace. Just before they took him down to the morgue Amanda read One's self I Sing she knew that a poem was a send-off that he would have wanted. Two years later Amanda got a random text with a picture of a baby girl Tiffany had named her baby Amanda Whitman Beener, she wiped her phone to clean off the tears that had fallen on the screen. As she went back to her locker there sit the book that she read to the kindest man.
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