One night when my endometriosis pain got so intense and excruciating, I knelt on the carpet to cry and pray. My sister-in-law was taking care of the children that day, and when they came into my room to say goodnight, I mustered up all the energy I had to appear well. It was impossible. My eyes were bloodshot red, my face was swollen, and I could not move from my knees to hug them goodnight.
As she walked the kids out of the room, my seven-year-old son was the last to leave. My sister-in-law reached her hand out to meet his, and as he stretched his little hand out to meet hers, he turned to me and asked,
“Mommy, are you going to die?”
All the energy I had falsely-mustered fell into my belly like concrete. I had thought often that pain was going to kill me, but it was the first time someone had given birth to those words. It was the first time death entered my ears, walked through the canals and cavities of my being and settled. I felt a surrender of sorts, and that night when my husband came to bed, I asked for my dying wish.
“If I’m going to die, can we live by the water for at least one month?”
♥
Kadine
