by Tici Pontes
“That... that was beautiful, son.” My mother spoke as she looked at me through the rearview mirror of the car.
Suddenly I realized that the two of them had heard everything and I was ashamed.
I put my head down and when I lifted again, all I could do was scream.
“Mom, look out!”
But it was too late.
The car hit a cow that was crossing the road. I felt the impact shake my body, but the car didn't stop. It spun around the track, aimlessly, unrestrained.
I took Alice's hand and squeezed it tight.
Even with the seat belt we were shaken by the swing of the car. I felt it when the vehicle left the track, because branches and leaves were entering the car through the broken windows.
Until a new impact hit me hard.
After that I saw nothing else.
When I woke up, the sound of the siren sounding inside the ambulance was deafening.
That two-tone melody reverberated in my ears making my head hurt. I just wanted that noise to stop.
I was trying to reason. To find out what was happening.
That's when I remembered the animal on the track.
My mother's screams.
Leonardo.
Dear God, what was happening?
“L-Leo,” I babbled.
“Try not to say anything, lady.” A man's voice reached my ears. “We're already getting to the hospital.”
Hospital? Oh my God! Mommy. Leo...
My head still hurt.
I let the pain beat me and closed my eyes. The darkness took me away.
I woke up with the rocking of the stretcher being removed from the ambulance and entering a huge, whitish corridor.
A flashlight was soon placed in my eyes blinding my vision. I tried to move, but my whole body was stuck on the stretcher and a cervical collar prevented me from moving my neck.
“Someone can call to my mother, please,” I begged the people who were helping me.
“What's your name? Do you know where you are? Do you know what happened?”
I was invaded by a series of questions that made me dizzy.
“Someone please call my mother,” I cried, invaded by fear.
“She's being treated in the other room” - someone explained. “Let's take care of you first.”
“Is she... is she okay?”
“Focus on us.” An authoritative voice resounded in the room where I had been placed.
“My name is Alice,” I answered, looking for the owner of that voice with my eyes, since my head was unable to move.
“And do you remember what happened, Alice?” The same voice spoke again.
He finally appeared in my line of sight and I realized that he was a 50-year-old man. A little grey hair and a nice smile. He wore a white coat and on his neck he had a stethoscope.
With his hands he began to feel my head, the bones of my cheek, nose and he went down the hand towards my neck.
“Does it hurt anywhere I squeeze?”
“N-no,” I answered. “Can you guys get that off my neck?”
“In a little while. So, tell me what happened.”
I forced my head trying to remember and then the image of the accident came to my mind. The animal invading the road, Leonardo's mother trying to swerve without succeeding and the impact. The car spun down the road and came off the track crashing into a tree.
I remember the screams of my mother and Leo's mother, the blood running down my face and... ...and his. Leo was head down, arms dropped beside his body, unconscious.
“What happened to my boyfriend?” I asked in distress remembering him unconscious, right next to me.
“First we need to take care of you, Alice. You have a ugly cut on your head and you told me in the ambulance that you lost consciousness. Head injury is serious.”
“I just want to know if he's okay, why doesn't anyone tell me if he's okay?”
“I'll tell you what...” The doctor who was assisting me entered my field of vision again and stared at me. “While we're taking care of you, I'm gonna ask someone to check up on your boyfriend. Deal?”
I let the air out hard and agreed.
After a series of tests I finally got rid of the restraints that tied me to the stretcher and the cervical collar. I was referred to an observation bed and a doctor came to perform the suture procedure on my forehead.
Until then I was being patient, but until when I could not tell. I hadn't heard from my mother, Leo's mother or from him.
The fear of the unknown consumed me. I seemed lost without knowing anything, and a feeling of numbness took over my body.
Had anything more serious happened to them?
Finally after another hour of pure torture my body was invaded by a wave of relief when my mother appeared where I was lying.
Her right arm was cast plastered and a bandage on her head indicated that she, like me, was not unharmed by this accident.
“Thank God you're all right.” She hugged me tightly and started an uncontrolled cry. “When I saw the moment they pulled you out of the car, I thought...” She choked on her own words. “I was so afraid.”
“Oh, Mama.” I held her tight. “I just remember a few flashes, but I'm fine, Mom. I... I think I'm fine.” I wasn't so sure about anything. “M-mama... how are Leo and his mom?” I asked with my breath stuck in my chest.
She opened her mouth to answer, but she closed again.
She hesitated.
I started nodding my head from side to side. At the same time Mom was sitting next to me on the bed and holding my hand.
“N-no,” I whispered, the voice failing. The dread began to run through my whole body.
“Leo's mother is fine, baby.” But that's not what I needed to hear. “It's just...”
“N-no,” I repeated the prayer.
“I'm sorry, dear...” - Mommy's voice was overwhelmed. “They did everything, but...”
But...
That word was the end of me. My world had just fallen apart. How come Leonardo was...
No.
NO.
As I shook my head from side to side a hole grew inside my chest, leaving me completely desolate. I couldn't believe he was dead.
“Say he's fine, please,” I begged and as much as that was my mother's wish I knew it was not possible for her to say those words.
“They couldn't make the bleeding stop, baby. His health condition aggravated the accident,” she spoke as if that were some kind of consolation.
I put my hands against my mouth and let out a muffled scream. Full of pain and torment. My eyes burned and soon thick tears began to flow down my face, and when I realized I was sobbing uncontrollably.
I sought out my mother's arms and sank into her lap, putting out all the pain I was feeling at that moment.
You are my world.
I remembered his words and my chest started bleeding. The hole in my heart swallowing all the good that was inside me.
I remembered the dream I had. The fear I felt and the pain that had invaded my nightmare.
And everything was real now. Oh, how I wished it was just a nightmare. But no. The pain was real. Despair was there, keeping me company.
In the end, the damn disease had been responsible for his death. Not in the way we imagined it, but in a crueler, more vile, more merciless way. An overwhelming sadness took hold of me. I was desolate. I only had the desire to disappear. To disappear from the face of the earth, or perhaps die, so that I could find Leonardo again.
One last kiss.
One last touch.
The chance to say goodbye.
No, I didn't want to say goodbye. I couldn't say goodbye. Leonardo and I had the future ahead of us. We had everything and in the blink of an eye, everything had turned to nothing.
Little by little, all the sadness that flooded me turned into rage, and by the time I least realized it, I was completely taken over by this toxic and addictive feeling. My fists were so tight that the finger j
oints were whitish.
I was angry.
Angry at my parents for bringing me to Mar de Areia.
Angry at God, for allowing Leo to have this hellish disease.
Angry at me for not getting a marrow in time. That could have saved his life.
And anger at Leo. For... for dying!
Why life had to be like this? One moment he was saying beautiful things to me, opening up the way he'd done and the next second he was taken from me.
“He promised, Mama!” I spoke in desperation. “He promised he would never leave me.” Tears were running down my cheeks. The pain I felt in my chest was overwhelming.
I didn't even get time to answer him.
Oh, my God! I didn't even have time to tell him that I loved him. I... I couldn't say goodbye.
“I didn't have time to say goodbye, Mom.” I felt my throat squeeze. “I don't want to live without him. I can't live without him. I-I... I didn't have time to answer his declaration to me... I didn't tell him I loved him at that moment!”
“He knew, my child.” Mama ran her arm around me and pulled me close. “He knew.”
Leonardo's funeral was held in the cemetery of the city of Mar de Areia and moved everyone.
Besides the presence of Leo's relatives, several residents and people who had attended the event to promote awareness of Bone Marrow donation were giving him the last goodbye. Leonardo's death ended up spreading throughout the region and even a television station was there, recording the moment.
The whole city went to say goodbye. As the coffin was taken away by his father, uncles and cousins, a crowd accompanied the procession to the place where Leo would be buried. I walked right behind the coffin, leaning on my mother and father, Leo's mother standing beside us. The route from the place where the funeral was held to the grave was short, but each step taken was made under monumental effort.
The burial took place in the late afternoon, two days after the accident. The sun was already declining on the horizon and brought with it a night full of sadness and longing. I remembered our sunset on the dunes of Mar de Areia. His body next to mine. His promises of love.
When finally his coffin went down to the final resting place, my heart bled some more. It was the final farewell.
The commotion was general when the burial was over and I confess that this only served to make the dagger that had pierced my heart since the accident, to come in a little more.
I was exhausted. I no longer had the strength to cry.
I just wanted to isolate myself from everything and everyone.
With his unique way Leonardo had come into my life, with his captivating personality he had won my heart. And now I had bid him farewell. I wasn't ready for that. Maybe I would never be ready.
When we got home I went straight to my room and started to remember everything we'd been through. I sunk my face into my pillow, wetting it with tears I didn't know I'd still be able to cry. The feeling of helplessness was suffocating.
“I'm sorry, Leo,” I whispered without knowing for sure if he could hear me or not. “I'm sorry I couldn't heal you. I'm sorry.” I surrendered again to my own despair.
Three days after the funeral my mother knocked on my door with the phone in her hands.
“Alice,” she murmured before entering the room and sitting on the bed where I was lying. “They... want to know if you can still...” My mother hesitated to speak, but I knew exactly what she wanted.
I had no interest in hearing the rest of the story.
“Tell them to stop calling, Mom,” I begged. “I don't care about anything else involving donation, marrow... none of it... so please... tell them to stop calling.”
I fell into a desperate cry.
How could I think about donating my marrow when Leo would never get his?
“Sweetheart...” My mother hugged me and started caressing my hair. “Don't decide anything now. I'll tell them you need some time to recover, okay?”
“I don't want to make a donation, Mommy” I sigh, without the strength to argue. “Not today, not ever.” I decreed by letting go of her touch and turning to the opposite side of where Mama was sitting. “Tell them to forget that I exist.”
I felt it when Mama got up from the bed and leaned towards me, putting a kiss on my head.
I didn't turn around.
I didn't look at her.
I just closed my eyes, feeling more tears run down my cheeks.
“I'll tell them you need some time.”
And before I could say anything she left the room leaving me deep in my thoughts.
The days that followed were full of sameness.
I spent most of my time in my bed. Feeling sorry for myself. The absence of Leo was overwhelming and every time I thought about all that we had experienced and all that we could have lived a new wave of crying reached me.
Only those who have lost someone know what that pain is. It's something that burns inside you, suffocates you, makes you want to scream until your throat hurts. The desire to have the person on your side again is so intense that you are capable of everything for just one more moment.
But that was impossible.
I would never see him again.
I would never hear his laughter again.
I would never ever feel his touch again.
Our life doesn't belong to us. It is part of a universe far greater than our existence. We are dust and to dust we shall return. Those plans we make for next week? Forget it... they may never happen.
No!
A flash of consciousness hit me.
I sat on the bed, put both hands on my head and shook it, vigorously.
That's not what Leonardo had taught me.
A minute we wasted mourning is a minute wasted, Alice. He used to tell me.
He had spent less than a year living with me, but he had taught me so many things that now I was beginning to feel ungrateful for not applying in my life everything he had applied in his.
To enjoy every moment.
What was I doing?
I tried to fix the tousled hair that had not been washed for days. He didn't deserve that behavior from me.
We had promised that we would enjoy every moment together, that we wouldn't waste a moment and there I was, acting like that. Feeling sorry for myself.
So I thought about the donation.
A person was desperately in need of being saved and the cure was inside me. How could I refuse that?
How could I kill someone's hope of healing so cruelly?
I could not.
Finally I got up from bed, took a quick shower and when I was feeling a bit more presentable I went to where my parents were.
Daddy on the couch, with the remote control in his hand, watching a soccer match while my mother was playing with Miguel, sitting on the floor.
“I'm ready,” I told them, looking for some of the strength I had lost since Leo's death.
They both looked at me.
“What for, dear?” Mama asked, the worried tone of voice.
I looked at her, then at Daddy.
Miguel continued distracted by his toys, queuing up his trucks of various sizes and colors.
I smiled.
I wasn't alone. I still had them, my family. And I also knew that I still had Leonardo inside me, in a place I knew he would never leave: inside my heart.
“Sweety?” Dad asked, frowning. He turned off the TV so he could have his full attention on me.
“What are you ready for, Alice?” Mama asked again, though I suspected she knew the answer.
“To make the donation,” I answered with satisfaction. “I'm ready to make the donation.”
Life is a lit candle.
Any stronger wind and the flame of our existence is extinguished. With only a smoke full of memories left.
How often do we see daily news about people who left at the height of their youth, artists who were at their peak and who are suddenly taken away from us because of car accidents, planes
.
Apart from the thousands of anonymous deaths that are not known to the general public, that are not mourned by thousands of people, especially in our era of social media. So many families are, at this very moment, mourning the loss of their loved ones. Some deaths are expected, others come suddenly, taking us by surprise, changing our lives, changing our world.
Life is a lighted candle.
Leo's was a lighted candle in the middle of a windstorm.
Was he just an anonymous guy who's gone?
I knew he wasn't, because the commotion in the city of Mar de Areia was touching. The mayor had decreed a three-day mourning and his grave was covered with flowers, letters and tributes.
He was not an anonymous, at least not to the city of Mar de Areia.
Not for me.
My greatest fear was that I would lose him because of his illness, but life decided to play this trick and take him in a way I never even imagined.
In an accident.
What kind of message did that want to send?
What kind of lesson should I take from all that happened?
Enjoy every minute of my existence?
He had already taught me.
To value people? To value the smallest things?
That he had already taught me, too.
I knew I had to find out what Leonardo's death meant.
I was sure of one thing. Just as he had said I was his world, he was also mine.
And from the moment my mother received that call, I had become someone else's world.
A stranger.
Anonymous.
And if it was in my hands to save a life and honor the memory of the one who transformed me into what I am today, then I would do so.
Dried my face with fury, trying to dry the tears that kept falling from my eyes.
I looked at my mother who was standing next to me and she gave me a smile full of complicity. She was beside me. Giving me the strength to complete what I had started.
Things happened so quickly and intensely that it changed forever the way I saw life.
Unforgettable: the right word to sum up all that I had experienced so far.