Cover Road:Cover - Teen Ink

non•fic•tion
10
The Hospital Visit by Catherine O’Donnell, Arlington Heights, IL
It was the day before Rosh Hashanah, but I wasn’t
Jewish. I was heading into the hospital, but I
wasn’t sick.
The lobby was like the starting gate at a racetrack:
a line of wheelchairs filled with former patients,
a group of healed people with their blinders on,
chomping at the bit to go home. Many of them had
balloons, teddy bears, and family members for their
entourage. Lucky ducks.
My back pocket buzzed; I paused in a corner
neatly arranged with cushioned chairs to take the
call. It was Mom: “Honey, she’s not in the best shape
right now. She may be asleep the entire
time you’re there, but, you know, that’s
okay.” After a few sighs and a goodbye,
I managed to move my cinder
block feet toward the elevator.
“Oh, he’s just doing so much better.
It’s unbelievable! I mean, just yesterday
he was practically comatose and
now he’s up and walking,” a young
woman with a colorful paisley scarf
said into her cell phone as she exited the elevator.
Lucky duck.
My fellow elevator riders were an older woman
and two kids, presumably her grandchildren. The
woman pressed the button for the third floor; I was
going to the eleventh. I did the usual routine of
gazing at anything but the other people in the
elevator. Finding nothing terribly interesting about
the certificate of inspection, I threw a quick glance
toward the children. Their eyes glimmered with
excitement. One hugged a teddy bear and the
other grasped a construction paper card, complete
with stick figures that, as children, we thought
Teen Ink • APRIL ’09
comparable to “Mona Lisa.” The elevator crept to a
stop, the doors opened, and the kids bolted; the sign
for the floor read “OB-GYN.”
“Let’s go see your baby sister.”
Lucky ducks.
The elevators opened with a ding on the eleventh
floor. I walked to the nurses’ station and asked for
directions to Room 1155, her room. 1151 … 1153 …
1155. I waited outside for a few seconds, becoming
my own coach for a pep talk.
“We have to be strong for her,” my dad had told
me the last time we visited. “She’s going through a
lot right now, so we have to keep smiles
on our faces.”
With a quick exhale, I entered the
room. The woman on the bed had white
hair and wrinkles. Her eyes slowly noted
my presence and then lazily drifted back
to the ceiling. The whiteboard next to her
read, “Smith, Evelyn.” She wasn’t my
grandma.
I stepped to the other side of the curtain.
The woman on the bed was sound asleep, her
mouth agape, her head tilted to the side. The cancer
treatments left a halo of curly hairs on the pillow. Her
nails were manicured, but her hands were swollen.
She was hooked up to a menagerie of machinery and
had a growing collection of bracelets on her left arm.
A picture of the Virgin Mary and a rosary sat on her
bedside table. Her whiteboard read “O’Donnell,
Adonai” with a lopsided smiley face underneath. She
wasn’t my grandma.
My 5'2" grandma had the heart of a lion and the
fight of a tiger. She would tell stories about Boobie
and his sister Boobette, troublemakers in the same
Outgrowing “Titanic” by Isabel, New York, NY
My brother, George, has a
tendency to get obsessed. He
becomes sickly entranced
with people, movies, and even random
things like Crocs. When I was seven,
he became infatuated with the movie
“Titanic,” and this obsession was unlike
any other. He ordered it on Pay
Per View. He watched it nonstop. He
had the shirts, the music, and had
memorized every line of the movie. It
was all he talked about. He became
angry and violent when my mom forbade
him to watch it anymore. Coincidentally,
the Christmas after the movie
came out, my family and I embarked
on a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas.
At first I was in heaven. I was
among gods like Minnie Mouse and
Donald Duck. Life, in my opinion, had
reached its peak. However, on the
third night, something happened that
didn’t fit in with my fairyland dreams.
At dinner George was upset with my
parents because they would not let
him watch “Titanic” in our cabin.
Finally, after yelling, “I hate my life
and I hate you,” he stormed out. My
parents sighed and started whispering
that George was out of control,
George was anxious, George, George,
George. I sullenly picked at my
Mickey Mouse-shaped cake.
We finally finished, to the relief of
My grandma
had the heart of
a lion and the
fight of a tiger
the baffled waiter, and decided to walk
along the deck, hoping to run into
George. As we turned the last windy
corner, I noticed someone climbing
the tall railing at the front of the ship,
head bent back, hair streaming. The
figure was wearing a tie-dyed shirt just
like George’s. The figure had spindly
legs just like George’s. The figure was
George. We ran toward him.
“George! What the
hell are you doing? Get
down right now!” my
parents yelled. I stood
there in shock as my
brother slowly climbed
the railing. I was afraid
to make any sudden
moves because he
might go right over.
Then it would be my fault.
“Stand back! Don’t come any
closer. I’ll let go,” George responded,
quoting “Titanic.”
This wasn’t funny. He wasn’t Rose.
There was no Jack to pull him back. I
suddenly felt ridiculous in my bright
pink Disney shirt. My dad quickly
moved to pull George down, but he
just climbed higher. We were stuck.
Would he really jump? There was no
time to think. My mom ran to get help
while Dad tried to calm him down.
Meanwhile, I started crying.
I stood there
in shock as my
brother slowly
climbed the railing
George suddenly turned back, his
braces flashing in the wind. He saw
me with tears streaming down my
cheeks. I yelled to him, “Georgie,
please don’t jump, please don’t do it,
Georgieeeeee.”
As he stared, I kept crying and
yelling. I even attempted to reason
with him, saying, “Rose didn’t jump.
You shouldn’t either!” I don’t know if
it was seeing me crying
or hearing that, but
either way, George
heard reason. Slowly
he climbed down. He
didn’t jump. He came
back.
My parents said that I
saved him. I was really
afraid this was true. I
didn’t want to be the only one who
made George want to be alive. I didn’t
want that responsibility.
* * *
Since then, George has seen it
all. He’s been on every medication
under the sun. He’s seen doctors
and therapists and everything in
between. We’ve heard the words
OCD, Asperger syndrome, bipolar.
He’s gotten better. He’s gotten older.
He’s more in control of his life. But
I’m still afraid.
Last summer we all went to
league as Dennis the Menace, who always managed
to cook up mischief. My grandma would sit us in
front of her vanity filled with bottles of perfume
and makeup, and brush our hair with her silverhandled
brush, a makeover of sorts. She would run
her manicured nails through our hair and ask my
sisters and me who our boyfriends were. When we
told her we didn’t have any, she would throw out a
few names, her way of “giving” us boyfriends. Mine
was Templeton.
A cough roused me from my daydream. She
wheezed twice and then settled back into her
slumber. I rubbed her swollen, latex-like forearm.
“You lucked out with your room, Grandma. You
got the window seat.”
The only response was a low grumble from her
respirator.
Dad said conversation usually helped her, so I
kept the news coming: Major League Baseball, my
classes and activities, the details of the homecoming
festivities.
Leaving the hospital, I felt slightly reassured.
While I had been there, she hadn’t taken a turn
for the worse, she wasn’t put on more medication,
she didn’t develop further symptoms. She slept.
With each of her breaths, each beep of the heart
monitor, I felt more certain that she would pull
through and be back to her normal storytelling self
in no time.
That Thursday, Grandma’s game of ping-pong
between the hospital and her nursing home added a
new destination: hospice.
It was the day after Yom Kippur, but I wasn’t
Jewish. We were saying good-bye, but I could barely
speak a word. ✎
Art by Jose Hadathy, Marietta, GA
Majorca. One day, we traveled around
some islands on a small, private tour
boat. The hot sun was beating on the
sea. My parents had fallen asleep and
George and I changed into our bathing
suits and decided to take a dip. He
wanted to swim laps; I wanted to float.
“Izzy, let’s jump off the top of the
boat,” he suddenly said excitedly.
My stomach churned at this notion
but I joined him. I told myself, There is
nothing to fear this time. He gave me
his huge, elfish grin as we climbed to
the top. We held hands. I tightened my
fingers. Then we leaped and embraced
the cold, searing water together. ✎
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