Hospital “Final Days”

“I have tried very hard to not get overwhelmed by all of this. But last night she told me that she was going to die, and that she needed help going through the gates. I haven't been to church in years. If I had any faith before, the process of watching her degrade herself truly destroyed any idea of God's mercy. Now there is only coincidence. So, when she told me that she needed my help to go through the gate, I had to answer her simply.

“I can't help you do that. Only God can take us, and only in his time. Not ours.”

She didn't seem satisfied with that answer, and honestly, neither was I. It was just me trying to give her an answer she would accept, and not one I believed in. She insisted that she was going to die tonight, but it was the statement that followed that caused me to have terrible nightmares that night; that caused me to wake up with these…feelings.

“God won't have me,” she said. “I want to go through the other gates. I want to go to Her.”

I asked her what she was talking about, who she was talking about. I didn't know what I expected her to say. I haven't found much reason in her words in a while, though that did not diminish my desire to try and help her.

“Her gates have been buried in the ground. He has ruined and crushed its bars. Her king and her princes are with the Gentiles. There is no law, and her prophets have found no vision from the Lord.”

It was from Lamentations...I hated that book. It was just more of the Old Testament and the wrath of God. Honestly, it was more about the destruction of nations at the hands of God, but she didn't say she was going to God. At least, not in her understanding. She said she was going to Her.

“Who is Her?” I asked.

“Ardat-Lili...Ardat...Lili.”

I thought she was having one of her moments. When her mind slips a little. But on a whim I decided to look up what she was saying, which led to a hour of me scouring articles and eventually leading to a sleep filled with nightmares. To my shock, I discovered the reference was Sumerian. She was talking about a demon, one with a desire to prevent woman from marrying.

She couldn't have been aware of it before now, and I tried desperately to find something to tie all of her thoughts together, to justify my fear. But in the end, the only conclusion I could come to was that it was just coincidence.

There was no truth in it.”

When I said before I wasn't a writer, it was partially a lie. I am not a writer anymore, at least, until now. Not after what happened to her. I wrote this shortly before her death, almost six months ago. There was so much going on in my mind back then, I suppose I was looking for a distraction. And I found it, in that research. But it was only temporary.

Noah has been released from the hospital. I got to see him before he went home. I was still worried about what my sister had been saying about me to my kids. The look on her face told me everything I needed to know. Even if she hadn't been, I could see in the look she gave me that she was still angry at me. That she still felt that I was a bad person.

Even if she was saying stuff, I suppose it wouldn't have mattered much. She wouldn't have told them lies, and if I am honest with myself, I could see how in this case, the truth would be more than enough to condemn me for I don’t know how long.

I never really tried to research what she said in those final days. At least, after the incident described above. It was easier to just get lost in it. To try and let the strange speech and distorted language roll off my back. It wasn't easy, and I am sure I ignored a lot of people who mattered in the process. By the end, I had managed some level of success. When she died, it was when I was truly numb.

Which is why my children hate me. By appearances, it must have looked like I didn't care for them at all. Like I didn't care for their mother. However, at their age, how could they possibly see that my distance was out of love? I couldn't share what I was going through with them. I couldn't let them witness what I was feeling. There are just some things that take a certain age to understand.

Then again, there are things that are impossible to understand no matter how old you are.