The Summer Of My Three Losses

The night Shamar got admitted came as no surprise to me. I knew with out really knowing that he was really sick and that what ever he had was no joke. I went to visit him in the hospital and the doctors fully explained to me what he had. His disease was called Auto Immune Hepatitis , a condition where his body did not recognize his liver and was attacking it. The steroids that he was taking at the time kept the attack at bay, but because he stopped them, his liver was destroyed.  IF he had went to the doctors much earlier as I have pleaded with him, they would have been able to remove the damaged parts of his live and gave him a half liver transplant from someone in his family that was a match. But alas it was too late for that option, he needed a full liver transplant. He spent a few weeks in the hospital, saw some specialist and they started the paper work to get him charity care so that he would be able to get the liver. During these weeks, I started my new job at Shoprite, suddenly overnight, I went from being a stay at home mom, to the sole bread winner. I had no problem with it. My love for that man was so strong that if I could have given him my liver, I would have, I would have done anything for him. We celebrated our daughters second birthday in his hospital room, he was so swollen but he kept a smile on his face and our daughter had a great time. As I turned to leave that night, he held my hand and said, don't worry, I will get better soon.... my God your so beautiful, I'm a lucky man and then he kissed my. It felt as though my heart wanted to burst threw my chest from the love and fear that raged inside it. A few weeks later, they released him into my care, they said that he was sick, but not sick enough to stay in the hospital.

As I write, my memories are flooding back, memories that I have stored far, far away and it is making this writing process all the more difficult. It is almost as if I'm now forced to confront them all.  Shamar came home completely bed ridden. He could not drive, or do much of anything. So it was almost like I had two kids. I had to take care of him and Essence while going to work. I chose the night shift so that I was home during the day to cook and watch over him. I made sure his meds were taking, I ran his bath, and when his feet got swollen, I would rub them down with raw shea butter and it seemed to help. He would watch the national geographic channel and all the channels that had fishing shows. To this day, I still cannot bring my self to watch any of those channels, and many nights as I reflect back, I cant seem to help but think that that was his way of seeing the world.... because he knew he would be leaving soon. He saw the worry in my face and he constantly told me not to worry, that we would get through this all and we would be able to carry on with our life together as planned. Even though he tried to reassure me, I saw him deteriorating right before my very eyes. He lost so much weight, that I stopped sleeping in the bed with him for fear that I would accidentally roll over and break something on him... his skin got even yellower and his pee started looking coffee brown. So that became my cycle , looking after him and the baby, going to work, coming home and doing it all over again. One Saturday morning as I laid next to him watching TV, he said, you don't love me anymore huh?  I said what?! why would you say that? he replied : because you don't sleep in here with me anymore.... he also said, let essence sleep up here with us, I want you both close to me. This conversation has haunted me on many a nights. Could it be, that he was seeing the angel of death in our bedroom and that is why he was drawing us close, as if in one final embrace?? I complied to his wishes and started sleeping in the bed again, at night I held him close and that was then and only then that I would let my tears flow. Things stayed ok for a few days and the the end came. I noticed that he started sleeping more, that he was not eating.... I had to force feed him. One night I came home from work and found essence soaked and Shamar still sleeping, just how I have left him. The water jug by his bed was untouched, which meant he had had nothing to drink. I woke him up, forced some water down his throat and he went back to sleep. The next morning around six, I awoke to find Shamar standing at the edge of the bed, He stretched, pulled his pants down, peed all over the floor , then climbed back into bed. I yelled at him, what the hell are you doing? he said what? I just had to use the bathroom.... you see... he actually believed that he had went into the bathroom. As I cleaned the floor, sobs rocked my body and  the tears flowed like a hot stream down my face.... I couldn't hold it in anymore. I called out of work that day because I knew it was no longer safe to leave him with the baby. By the end of the day, He had gotten worse. He went into the bath, fully dressed and tired to take a shower.... as I went in to try to pull him out, he looked at me with crazed eyes and started fighting me because he in that moment had no idea who I was!! As shocked as I was with the fact the he no longer could recall who I was, me, the woman whom he had shared the past four years of his life with, I knew that he had to go to the hospital. I called 911 and they sent an ambulance, he was so paranoid that they had to strap his arms and legs down to get him in the ambulance, that was the last time Shamar ever saw our apartment.