I looked out the window, watching as the snow fell slowly to the ground; sticking, I became dazed. I was grateful when Iaughter pulled my gaze away from the falling snow. I asked the nurses earlier, to close the blinds but they always replied with something along the lines of, "No, the beautiful scenery is good for you." Something like that.
As I turned to where, the Laughter was coming from I watched as the patient across from my room greeted her family visiting her. Watching, I thought about all the times I wished I yelled at the nurses that I didn't care for the beautiful scenery or how I wished I yelled or even wailed like a child if I thought that it didn't match my age that it pained me to see the falling snow because it made me remember the happy times.
The times when my sister, Sarah, and I would run outside on those snowy winter days like today and have a snowball fight or build a snowman. The times my mom, Heather, would make me a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting for my birthday, or the times my parents would give me presents on my birthday despite my birthday being three days after Christmas, and I already received other presents. Those times and other times slowly faded away as I became confined to this bed and a prisoner to the relentless grip of my illness.
When it was the first week of being in the sterile confines of this hospital room, I remember how my mom, dad, and Sarah would come to visit me and bring me soup after they got off work or school. I would eat my soup as Sarah would tell me how her school was. Well, our mom and dad talked to my doctor about my current state and held hope in their eyes as the doctor told them after spending a week in the hospital I could leave. A week turned into eight years.
During those eight years, family visits decreased. When my family did visit, Sarah would tell me, "I won't be able to visit you Wednesday. I am going to the movies with Penny. Also on Thursday I am going shopping with Mom for some new pants. Also, on Friday I won't because I'll be too tired from school. Sorry, though maybe next week okay." when I asked her if she could come visit me. After a few more ten minute visits she no longer came. When my mom came to visit me she would tell me how the family business was doing badly because I wasn't there anymore after school to help. It was like this every time she visited. I remember her saying, "Ugh why can't you just get better? Do you know how tired I am from helping your father at the store, well you just lay here?" with a displeased look.
My dad never visited me. After the first week.
The last time she visited me she told me, "William, me and your father decided that we're going to use your college fund to help with the business." With an irritated look in her eyes, she continued with a snarl saying, "Since we spent most of the money we earned paying your medical bills." That was 7 years ago.
Since then I waited for them to come to visit me but I slowly came to realize my family had gradually forgotten me and I became an unseen burden, a shadow in the corners of their lives.
I turned away from the laughter of visitors and the patient, laid my head back into my pillow and closed my eyes to rest.
six days later
to be continued.