Death

"I can’t see the light! Oh no, I can’t see the light! Mamma, help me," cried Shawn as his liver failed and the toxins entered his blood stream.

What does one do when a loved one hallucinates, loses their mind and begins to die in sheer panic?

His cries of paranoia were so real. I wanted to see what he was so afraid of and chase it away.

He was in another world, perhaps hell itself.

"I have to get you to a hospital," I assured my fading friend while noticing he had pissed all lover the bed.

The urine was dark brown.

The angel of death was in the room, but she didn’t scare me.

“Back off, bitch, he’s mine,” I mumbled as chills rushed up my spine and I tried to calm him down.

He screamed and fought the paramedics and police. They called for back-up.

It took seven uniformed me to drag him from the house in his derranged state and strap him down on a stretcher.

I knew it was best for him. But the way they took him out of our home was brutal.

If I hadn’t been there to calm him down, he may have busted out of the restraints they had him in.

Hospital staff face death so calmly. The injected him with something and his screams of pure hell diminished and he grew silent.

“What was he talking about? Why was he screaming so loudly?” I asked the professionals at Brooklyn Hospital Center.

“He needs a liver transplant. He was acting that way because his liver is failing.”

Crazy people carry a certain conviction in their delusions that seem to seep into the reality of the sane. I could do nothing but tell him to hold on and that I was going to help him.
His body was bleeding in numerous places. Red rivers of life sustaining liquid, the color of love, flowed from his mouth.

"He wasn’t bleeding at home. Where did all this blood come from? What are you doing to him?" I cried loudly like my insane lover.

He opened his eyes and for the first time since the onset of the hallucination he said something coherent--"Hold your head up."

A stranger in the emergency room who was standing close by walked over to me and said, "Pray over him. He wants you to stop being sad and hold up your head. Now pray over him," she ordered like a Rabbi.

Words flowed from my mouth like the blood from my lovers lips. The commotion of the emergency room subsided as his body started to tremble and the bed on which he was strapped shook.

My hands trembled as they remained glued to his body during the laying of hands.

I couldn’t stop the flow of the words. They continued to spew from my mouth, and for a moment, the prayer itself seemed to be the purpose of my entire life.

I spoke things that were not coming from my conscious mind and known vocabulary, but rather, an ancient language consumed me, one that I only knew while laying hands on the body of my departing friend.

An old Black woman grabbed my arm and said, "I hope your friend makes it. I will pray for him too."

“Get away from me, bitch!” I shouted as I felt a draining of energy while she touched my arm during the prayer.
The pain and agony left his face. He seemed to be at peace and finally, I let go.