Moving Forward in Reverse Read Free

again, I slowly opened my eyes.
Light blared from above with such intensity I thought I could hear it screaming
in my ears. I grunted – though no sound came from my lips – and winced,
squinting my eyes into protective slits. As my pupils adjusted to the harshness
of my surroundings, I cautiously peered in the direction of the hand which had
woken me.
    If it had been just about
anyone else standing beside me in that moment, I think I would have cried out
in frustration at still being in a hospital surrounded by strangers. But this
time, it was a cluster of familiar faces that beamed at me from above. I looked
from one to the next: Mom with the same dark complexion and curly brown hair I
remembered standing beside my stepfather, Don, in his usual plaid shirt and
tan, suspendered slacks to my right; and my older sister, Nancy, a taller
version of our mother with dark brown hair cut at her neckline leaning against
her husband, Jim, his kind eyes smirking at me from behind the aviator lenses
of his eyeglasses, to my left.
    As I gazed from one
wonderfully familiar face to the next, all I could think was pure joy.
    Don grinned down at me while
my mom leaned over and kissed my forehead. She stroked my hair with a slight
tremor in her hand and bit her lip on a whimper. My eyes swept across their
faces again and again, giddily hopping from one to the next like a kid at a candy
store: some of this and a bit of that; some of these and a lot of those. Not
even the tension evident in their expressions or the way their smiles seemed to
stretch the skin around their eyes a little too thin could diminish the elation
I felt at seeing them.
    You have no idea how glad I
am you’re here, I thought and swiveled my eyes to the left where Nancy and Jim
were standing bunched together. I really didn’t know what I’d do if it had
been another nurse or doctor who woke me up. Heck, I’d probably clamp my eyes
shut and never open them again.
    I stared at them, smiling
internally with every ounce of my being, laughing to myself at my meager
attempt at humor. But their faces stayed the same: smiling with their mouths,
pleading with their eyes. I looked at Jim, his face a plaster mask of moral
support, then back to Nancy, watching me with too much intensity, her hand a
vice grip around Jim’s forearm. I cringed and for a brief moment wished yet
again that I had never opened my eyes. I didn’t need their fake optimism or
coddling expressions.
    Watching Nancy’s eyes blink a
little too often, though, I realized the smiles were as much for them as they
were for me. If not for fake optimism we would have been a room of sobbing,
blubbering hopelessness and that’d be beneficial to no one. I couldn’t fault
them for trying to keep their faces dry when I was sure countless tears had
already been shed on my behalf over the past few weeks.
    These weeks were probably
harder on them than they had been on me, I mused and felt the gut-wrenching remorse of a
traitor. For all those agonizing moments when death loomed, and the days the
doctors sagged in their lab coats as they whispered that I probably wouldn’t
make it, I had been asleep. I could have slipped away none the wiser, sheltered
from my suffering by a medically-induced coma while they were left to grieve.
    I couldn’t imagine the terror
they must have experienced at never knowing; at being stranded in a perpetual
state of uncertainty and fear of hope while I remained oblivious to it all. How
many times had they stood like this around me as I slept? Watching, waiting,
wishing. How many times had they already donned these delusively capable
facades for each other’s sakes?
    I sought frantically for a
way to lighten the mood. In situations such as this, I was often the humor
relief, armed to the teeth with sarcastic quips. But now, when my humor was
needed most, I was left completely inept. I had woken from the coma and lived
through the flesh-eating disease, but I couldn’t offer a single word of