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{FIGHTING FOR LIFE}<br />
Donna Jacobs-Sife<br />
Years ago, doctors opened my father’s chest and breast bone,<br />
reached into his body and held his heart in their hands.<br />
There it lay beating before them,<br />
as they gazed upon the ungazable.<br />
They cut his heart open and removed<br />
the valve that was blocking his flow<br />
of blood, and replaced it with the<br />
valve of a pig. We made many jokes<br />
about his unkosher heart in the build<br />
up before the Big Day.<br />
We went to see him, having<br />
prepared ourselves for what<br />
we would see. "There will be<br />
lots of tubes" we told each<br />
other, "and he will be very<br />
pale". But nothing quite<br />
prepares you for the sight<br />
of your beloved in a state<br />
of coma, on life support.<br />
He looked so vulnerable,<br />
so unfamiliar. We held his<br />
hand, and whispered that<br />
we loved him in his ear,<br />
and left. We walked across<br />
the park to the car silently,<br />
holding each other’s hands<br />
tightly, four abreast, marching against<br />
the cold wind, an army - linked by<br />
common blood and full hearts.<br />
Across the road, I noticed that<br />
my car door was open. "Look," I<br />
said to my sister, "mum must have<br />
forgotten to close the door." But as<br />
my eyes began to focus I thought I<br />
saw someone sitting in the passenger<br />
seat. Disengaging from the others<br />
I ran across the road, and saw that<br />
indeed, a man was sitting in my car.<br />
"Hey!" I shouted, crisp and sharp.<br />
He jumped out, like a wild foraging<br />
animal, disturbed by the sudden<br />
appearance of man. "Sorry, sorry,<br />
sorry" he babbled. "I was so desperate.<br />
Here," he said, taking my hand, "take<br />
it back". Two five-cent pieces and a<br />
ten-cent piece rolled into my hand.<br />
He was quite beautiful really, my<br />
age, with a torn thin checked shirt<br />
and tight black jeans. His immediate<br />
contrition touched me. Instinctively<br />
my fingers tightened on his and I<br />
felt the trembling and knew that<br />
it was more than cold, it was also<br />
the disease of withdrawal. "Its ok,"<br />
I said to him, "I understand." I<br />
understood that he was cold and in<br />
pain. I understood that he was so<br />
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sorry that life had brought him to<br />
this moment. His eyes, hooded with<br />
shame, held mine. So vulnerable, so<br />
familiar. For a moment, the world<br />
stopped spinning and all that existed<br />
were two pairs of human eyes holding<br />
each other. Gazing upon what is so<br />
often ungazable, in these<br />
cold streets of Sydney. For<br />
a moment he let me hold<br />
his heart in my hands, and I<br />
knew that nothing separated<br />
us. His pain was mine. His<br />
shame was mine. My fingers<br />
loosened their soft grip<br />
and as he slipped away, we<br />
smiled. Turning back, rather<br />
tenderly, almost fatherly he<br />
said "lock your car in future."<br />
That night they gave my<br />
father morphine to numb the<br />
pain. The man from the street<br />
was probably was in some<br />
seedy place, administering<br />
to himself to numb his own pain.<br />
My father was fighting to regain life,<br />
to mend his heart; not so different<br />
from that man. Both were soldiers on<br />
the front line. The doctors removed<br />
the blockage in my father’s heart,<br />
and somehow I can’t help but feel<br />
that this man and I did something<br />
similar for each other. Something<br />
that dwells in the mystery of a<br />
moment, when two people allow<br />
themselves to be seen by the other.<br />
As I drove away, I saw that man<br />
standing at the lights. I noticed he was<br />
standing tall with his head up against<br />
the lightpole, looking at the stars.<br />
I knew how he felt, my heart was<br />
hopeful too. I beeped. We waved.<br />
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