One Year Later…

Smythe laid restless in her bed, noting the date. February 15th. It had been a night of constant tossing and turning. She peered toward the window at the far end of her room. Where is that light coming from?! Disgusted with her lack of sleep, Smythe turned her back to the window. She reached for her glasses on the side table before glancing at her alarm clock. She sighed, pulling the sheet over her head and closing her eyes. It was then she remembered the light which streamed through the edges of her curtain came from the porch lamp, which remained on all night.

She thought that perhaps she was uneasy because she had resigned from her position at work the day before. No, she sighed, it had been months in the making. Still. Whatever the reason for her restlessness, Smythe found herself mentally reviewing pieces of her life. Picking at it, really.

She thought about her name. She could not recall why her parents named her Smythe Windwalker Daniels. It was a name people either mispronounced or made fun of. It was Smythe, like Smith, not Smythe with a long “y” or Smithee. Her father said he named her. He heard the name meant to smite something, or another word for soldier. Her middle name was even more of an issue. Given to her by her mother, Clara, of Navajo lineage, she said Smythe was conceived in the back of an old pickup during a windstorm in the fields of an Illinois farm. Her mother eventually married Smythe’s father, Drake, an African American Army officer. Considered late in comparison to the rest of their generation, Clara and Drake didn’t marry until their early thirties. Together they raised Smythe and her two sisters, each born a little over a year and a half apart.

Smythe tossed to the other side of the bed. “Perhaps it really is just the uncertainty of my future,” she mumbled. After a few more minutes of wandering down memory lane, complete with enough sighing to keep anyone awake, she rose to the stillness of the morning. She fumbled to turn on the lamp on her nightstand and sat up against her headboard. The glow of the lamp bathed her in soft strands of golden light, and there, she quietly sat, wondering what the day ahead would bring. Gazing around her bedroom, Smythe realized she had nowhere to go. Desperate for a cigarette, she quickly dressed and made coffee before heading out her apartment door. As though for the first time, she noticed that her apartment faced north, and it caused her to pause.

She remembered reading that north was the symbol of culmination and fulfillment, infused with clarity of mind.

It’s the liminal space that offers us the ability to release the lessons we have learned into our conscious moments. It’s supposed to represent wisdom and insight, allowing for a deepening of our contemplative moments.

Smythe stood on the threshold of her front door, scrunching her nose. She wondered what she knew for sure anymore. Everything seemed so new.

She entered her car, pressed her SUV’s ignition button, and took note of the time—3:00 a.m. Turning on the heater, she sat, calculating how long she would give herself that morning.

Three hours should be enough. Joao will have to wait.

With a cold front sweeping in from the north the night before, threatening to freeze everything in its path, the morning hours offered a bitter cold, engulfing the valley in frost yet again. She sat back and watched small ice particles melt atop the hood of the car while she waited for it to warm up.

Slowly backing out of her parking stall, she rolled her window down, staring at the darkened windows of her neighbors. Bed is where I should be. She smirked, lit a cigarette, and took a sip of coffee before making her way out of the complex.

Just breathe, it’ll be ok.

She drove to a small strip mall, a mere two blocks away, positioning her car east to watch the sun rise above the mountain range. Knowing the early morning hour was no place for a woman alone in the middle of a parking lot, she hid along the side of a large department store, away from the street lamps.

After idling her vehicle and smoking a couple cigarettes with a few sips of coffee in between, she turned off her engine. Feeling the morning’s cold February air, Smythe gathered her jacket collar around her neck. She sighed and sat in weariness. So much had shifted in her life. Her eyes darted around the parking lot. It was empty, save a car at the far end. She felt the heaviness of the air around her, and she listened. The only sound was the reverent silence an early morning could offer. And here, in the solitude of the morning, Smythe sat waiting.

Her old nemesis began to surface, and it called her crazy. She brushed it aside as old news and dreamt of the many possibilities of a new future. A frown formed across her brow as her mind wandered to the last three weeks. She could feel the weight of grief threatening to take over.

These last few weeks should have been filled with joy.

She stared out the window, taking in a breath. Her inward vision tunneled as she recalled the recent dark days.

Just four weeks before her resignation, Smythe found herself sitting in an emergency room next to her mother, Clara. Smythe’s father had become gravely ill. Diagnosed several years ago with a degenerative brain disorder, he barely recognized Smythe and often hallucinated. His gait was slow, shuffled, and stiff, requiring the constant use of a walker. He could no longer swallow food without violent fits of coughing. As if the physical deterioration wasn’t enough, her mother suffered under his obstinate behavior. Refusing to follow directions for even the smallest of tasks, he yelled and berated her. At one point, he threatened her with his cane, causing her mother to call Smythe to come to her rescue.

One day, while sitting in a meeting at work, her mother called to say that her father was unresponsive after attempting to wake him that morning. Clara called the paramedics, and after a brief examination, they rushed him to the hospital. Smythe arrived at the emergency room and found her mother sitting alone in his room where her father’s bed should have been. Upon her face lay a trail of dried tears. She began to weep of exhaustion once again as her daughter approached.

“Oh Smythe, he’s had a stroke, and they are unsure he will survive it,” she blurted out.

Smythe’s skin paled, her eyes widened, and she willed her tears to cease their march down her cheeks. She lifted her chin and looked around the room.

“Where is he?”

“They’ve taken him for tests. They want to see how bad it is.”

Smythe moved an empty chair to sit next to her mother. They both winced at the sudden, loud, scraping sound. Holding her mother’s hand, Smythe listened as her mother recited yet another chapter of her father’s long goodbye. At the end of her story, she weakly asked Smythe to call “the girls.”

“I will, but only after we get results about the tests.” Her mother nodded in agreement.

When it came to bad news, Smythe was often the unwilling conduit of information to the family. She was the one who called her siblings when her grandmother died, the one who called when their aunt passed away, the one who called when their father had a heart attack, and the one who called with the neurological diagnosis of their father. Now, she was tasked to deliver even more devastating news.

A short time later, her father was wheeled into the room. Placing an oxygen tank behind his bed, the nurse dimmed the lights low. The ER doctor strode into the room a short time later and introduced herself to Smythe before solemnly asking for a meeting outside.

They followed behind the doctor into an adjoining waiting room, which provided sensory relief from the noise of monitoring equipment and chatter in the hallway. Smythe’s mother huddled next to her.

“He will not recover, I’m afraid,” the doctor quietly stated. “The damage is too extensive.” She explained the various tests performed, the reason for the tests, and their results. Smythe pursed her lips together. She felt her mind wander but compelled herself to focus on the information the doctor conveyed.

And then the question.

“What do you want to do?” the doctor asked. Smythe closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she turned to her mother. She watched as tears streamed down her mother’s cheeks, her face beginning to become ashen. She took her mother’s hand into her own and looked deep into her eyes.

“I can’t make the decision, Smythe.”

“He would not want this, Mom.”

“I know. I just can’t say the words. I need you to say them for me,” she whispered.

Smythe stood in silence. She imagined her mother and the 50 years of marriage she shared with her husband. Smythe imagined that perhaps by not saying the words, her mother was delaying the decision, if only for another moment. But someone had to speak.

To make the most compassionate decision she could on her father’s behalf, Smythe looked over to the doctor, her voice steady and strong. “He wouldn’t want this existence and would be furious if we kept him alive like this. We need to let him go.”

The doctor nodded her head. She went on...