The Blue Notebook (By Author HR Burkett)

"Hey baby girl."

I swiveled around in my old, stained blue office chair, turning my back on the long letter that I had been typing as well as the rest of my cluttered, beat down desk. I found my father looking tired, dusty and disheveled in my bedroom doorway. "Finished?" I asked.

"No, but my back is hurting. Will have to work on it more tomorrow." My dad groaned as he kneaded the mid-center of his back with a ham-sized fist, his other tanned arm reaching for my door frame as he leaned his six-foot-tall figure against it. At his feet was a worn, brown paper grocery bag with a red Winn Dixie logo on the front. "I found some things of hers I thought you might want." 

His gruff voice belied a twinge of grief the way it always did when he spoke of her.

I nodded and gave him a meek attempt at a smile.

He responded with a sad smile of his own, adding a nod of understanding. "There's some clothes that might fit you. Some jewelry and other odds and ends. I'm sure there's more in the closet; I'll let you know when I finish cleaning tomorrow." With that, he arched his back, crying out as numerous vertebrae audibly popped back into place. 

With his head thrown back, one hand still fisting his spine as the other clamped tightly onto the door frame in pain, he shook his head. "I'm gonna take a hot shower before I go to bed. You stayin' up?"

I looked at the bag that lay at his feet and nodded silently, knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep until I had thoroughly examined every relic that once belonged to my favorite person in the world.

"Alright, Baby. Don't stay up too late." He stumbled into my room, his sore, scarred knees swollen to the size of cantaloupes with ankles the size of softballs. 

One of his warm, large mitts engulfed the back of my head as he leaned down gingerly – that one hand still guarding the middle of his spine – to kiss me upon the forehead.

"Goodnight Daddy."

"Goodnight Baby Girl" he whispered into my auburn cascade of hair before shuffling out of my room and disappearing into the master bedroom across the hall where boxes and bags were strewn about haphazardly from his vain attempts to prepare the room for the arrival of his new bed earlier in the day.

Hmph, this will be the last night he sleeps in the same bed my mom slept in.

The grief I felt as that thought crossed my mind was a gilded knife, slicing through my gut and twisting into my intestines like a fork twirling pasta. It was getting hard to breath past the lump of emotional pain that was intensifying in my throat.

My joints creaked and ached in protest as I stood up from the desk chair I'd occupied for the last hour and a half and hobbled over to the bag near my bedroom door. I plopped down lazily beside it, drawing the decrepit keepsake between my thighs before wrapping my legs around it "Indian" style.

Within the creased and tattered paper of the bag was the following:

• A lavender blouse that I had worn in high school that was now ten sizes too small

• The mangled, twisted remains of a black lace hat my mother wore Easter day when I was eight years old.

• A gold, metallic leopard print skirt my mom wore as part of her costume for the play "Love, Sex and the IRS" in 1999.

• Various fake pearl necklaces and various mismatched costume jewelry – most of which was tarnished or missing pieces.

• A worn, light blue spiral notebook with its lined pages started to come loose from the binding.

• Three magazines from the 1970's with numerous dog-eared pages marking the recipes she no doubt wanted to try.
  

I decided the clothes and magazines would be donated, I'd keep the pearls, and probably toss the mismatched, rusty jewelry. All that remained for me to look at was the light blue, spiral notebook. In blue ink at the top of the cover was my mother's name in her beautiful cursive script. I fought against the damaged white, metal spirals binding the notebook together to prod open the cover. There, on the first page that was browned with age and beginning to tear from the book, was more of my mom's impeccable penmanship; this time in black ink that flowed enthusiastically beneath her elegant ministrations.

4/17/81

Good morning my precious baby. Today you are two months old. Growing so very fast. Sometimes I wish at certain moments that I could stop time and just keep things the way they are. But then again, I dream of when you begin to talk & walk. Sometimes Heather, I even dream of a beautiful wedding for you. (If you want a big wedding.) Thank God no one can take our dreams away.

I scrambled worriedly to dry my tears from the page, but they streamed as effortlessly as the ink had flowed from the pen she had utilized on this very page 37 years prior.

My pain left me in a torrent of salty tears as feral, heart-wrenching wails clawed from my strangled throat.

It was not the first tortured cry I had released since her death two years ago, and I had known from the very start that it would not ease for many, many more years to come. As I wept, I realized how tragically beautiful our story was – the difficulties she had bringing me into this world, the sincerity of the love we had shared, the intensity of the friendship we had developed, and the sorrow with which death cruelly pried her out of my desperately clinging fingers.

It had not been an easy life for her. Even after falling in love with and marrying my father, fate had still been unkind. She found herself in her late twenties unable to conceive or carry a pregnancy to full term.

After the heartache my mother had already suffered, my parents then endured a total of five miscarriages. My parents stopped trying and gave up any hope that they would ever conceive. Instead, they focused their attention on my brother.

Then in April, two months after her 29th birthday, my parents discovered that they were pregnant. Doctors warned that her uterus was too damaged to ever carry the baby to full term, so my parents did their very best not to get excited.

But then May passed and a heartbeat could be heard.

June revealed that the fetus had grown slightly bigger.

By July, the baby had survived the dangerous first trimester.

The unborn child grew stronger through August and by September, my parents could not help but to hope.

It was with that hope that my mother started writing in the little tattered, blue spiral notebook.

She hadn't met me yet. She'd never seen my face, heard my voice or felt my touch…but she loved me.

I know, because as I opened the faded, robin's egg blue cardboard cover and began to read her elegant script, that is exactly what her next letter said. I hadn't even entered the world and yet, she had written to me as if we were already the very best of friends.

My eyes darted left to right, line by graceful line and page by fragile page as I took in the words she’d left for me before God had given me life, only to be read after God had taken hers.

It dawned on me that our story had inadvertently come full circle, for I had spent many sleepless, tear-stained nights over the past three years typing letters of my own that she would never have the chance to read. 

Letter after letter, note after note, I poured my heart out to her about my:

• Anger with the two nurses who allowed her to fall, thereby breaking her ankle and concussing her.

• Intense frustration at being unable to heal her injuries.

• Yearning for her to speak to me again.

• Realization and ultimate anxiety over the fact that I could not remember her laugh.

• Appreciation for the exorbitant amount of time and energy she'd spent spoiling me

• Remorse for the mistakes I'd made and grief I'd caused throughout my youth.

• Anguish as I realized she was slowly slipping away 
  

I wrote my first letter to her on April 3rd – the day after she spoke to me for the very last time. I wrote to her as the doctors informed us that there was no sign of brain damage from the fall, suggesting that her silence was due to the medications she was on and that they expected her to make a full recovery.

I continued my letters in May when doctors advised that her prognosis was not good. She was no longer showing signs of brain activity; a tracheostomy was performed and a feeding tube inserted because she was not getting enough oxygen or nutrients. Her kidneys were failing from the influx of medicine she was being given, so she was transferred to a long-term care facility. 

I wrote many, many more letters in June when doctors recommended that my father sign a DNR order to allow her to pass naturally when the time came. My father refused, stating that he knew this was not the end and that God would save her.

I wrote to her the day the long-term care facility advised that they had done all they could do for her and that she would be discharged before the end of the month. Our options were to bring her home with 24-hour care – which we could not afford – to send her to another hospital where she might survive in this condition for months more; or to transfer her to hospice care where they would ensure that she was comfortable for the rest of her remaining days. 

I wrote to her on June 18th; the day that I packed my bags and moved into room 111 at Seasons Hospice in Miami to stay by her side. I wrote to her the next day, and the next, but I did not write the day after that. That was the day that her closest family and friends gathered by her side to turn off the life support and say their goodbyes.

We held vigil from ten in the morning till 9:00 pm, when everyone but me started to leave for home.

I did not write for the next nine days. 

Instead, I painted her nails which had grown long and strong and brushed her hair, now silver and dark gray from her scalp to midway down the length of her hair. I plied her scabbed and bruised skin with moisturizer. I monitored her temperature, quick to cover her up or expose her as needed so that she appeared comfortable. I counted her breaths, which would become congested every hour or so, in order to request that the nurses come in to provide suction to clear her airway, and I winced every time they did it because she would grimace and choke before she could start to breathe better again.

During the days, we would visit with whichever family and friends happened to come by – attempting to talk to her as if everything were normal or sharing funny and fond stories of how wonderful she had treated us. I often used that opportunity to get some sleep or to step into the bathroom to bathe in the sink, since I knew there would be someone by her side to call me if I was needed.

And at night? At night, I would pull my chair up to her bedside, wrap my arms around her arm and hold her hand in mine. I would spend the darkest hours in that position, and that is how I would sleep for minutes at a time as I kept a constant watch on the rise and fall of her chest.

I survived only on the kindness of my loved ones as they supplied me with drinks and snacks and fast food meals and her? She just survived on pure will alone.

I also did a lot of research. The internet informed me that yes, she could hear us but it was uncertain whether she could have active thoughts or not. And when the time came, her limbs would grow cold to the touch as her body would draw her blood into her core as a final attempt to protect her organs. Google said that her skin would become blotchy as the blood stopped flowing normally and began to pool. Her breathing was expected to grow increasingly shallow and slow.

I would not write to her again until the evening of July 1st.

The day had not started any differently than the the past two weeks. The nurses came in just after noon to bathe her and change her dressings. Normally, they asked me to step out of the room but on this day, I asked to stay and they permitted it.

I tucked myself away into what I had come to consider "my chair" – a stiff blue recliner positioned in the corner of the room - attempting to stay out of the way as much as possible while the three nurses worked in unison. It was amidst their tender caregiving that her legs caught my attention.

"Stop." The word came out in a hush.

"Stop!" I repeated louder as I confirmed that my eyes weren't deceiving me.

The woman and her two male accomplices froze in place as they turned to stare at me.  I reached for my mother's calf and gasped; she was ice cold. "It's time," I whispered.

Their eyes traced mine to the blotchy exposed skin of her legs and – as they came to the same conclusion – they swiftly laid her flat onto the bed. The larger male nurse removed a stethoscope from around his neck and placed one end into his ears before applying the other end to listen to her chest. I assume the metal was cold to the touch as stethoscopes usually are, but my mother had grown so cold that I doubted she registered it.

I am unsure if – at that moment – I pushed the nurses out of the way or not but the next thing I remember was being by my mother's side – her right hand in my right hand as I caressed her hair and face and whispered loving things into her ear. I said nothing and everything and anything all at once. I told her she was loved and named the people who loved her. I told her she was free and named the people who were waiting to welcome her to the other side. I thanked her and told her she was amazing and wonderful and that she was living a legacy that would live on and never be forgotten.

And as I spoke in a mad rush to fit it all into the moment, her breathing slowed. She breathed so lightly that her chest barely moved at all and then….and then it didn't.

"She's gone" the man with the stethoscope confirmed at one o’clock in the afternoon.

In the present, I ran my hands over the words on the aged, beige-colored paper before me, feeling the slight indentation from where her pen had once flowed so elegantly over this very same page. I admired the beauty and depth of her words, reminded of how she used to always brag on me for the beauty and depth in mine. It was nice to feel our similarity at that moment – to feel connected to her in such an intimate way. She'd always been proud of my prose, even encouraging me to pursue it as a career and now, I could see where my inclination for writing came from.

The inspiration came to me in a flash.

I threw back the covers, jumped out of bed and raced back to the computer I had abandoned a little over an hour again. With a quick kiss to its antiqued cover, I laid the notebook down beside my keyboard and began to write what I hoped might become the title of a future book:

"Love Letters From Beginning to End.  Written by Carol & Heather Burkett."