PROMPTuesday #32 - One Word
Yes, I’m taking my shot at the PROMPT again. I missed doing these each week while laid up. (Hmm, I should have asked someone to call me and read me the PROMPTs so I could work on them offline. Oh the things you think of after the fact. D’oh!)
This week, Deb has us focus on one word: “held”. She took the oneword.com prompt and ran with it. I’m really tempted to play fast and loose with this one and cheat a bit but I think I’m actually going to give you two entries for the price of one.
Rules:
- Try to write your entry in 10 minutes. This encourages top-of-mind, primal thinking before the ego and judgmental brain kick in. Just set a timer, make your kid count to 600 slowly, whatever. It’s an honor system. And I trust you.
- Aim for 250 words or less.
- Please have fun. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Together, let’s rediscover the simple joy in the writing process.
- Post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
So, here I go.
Entry number one:
As I was lying there in the bed, full of pain and medication, the one thing, the one thread that kept me in the present was the warm hand that held mine. I could barely focus at times, but I felt that hand always. Always. It was gentle, but firm. It was there. No question about it. When I opened my eyes, though, there was no one there. I looked around. I was frantic for a moment or two and then the hand gently squeezed mine and I suddenly felt calm beyond all reason. Then, just as sudden as the calmness that had settled upon me, I smelled Le Jardin and I knew it was her. She was there. Watching over me. And somewhere just beyond that immediate smell was the scent of pipe tobacco. He was there, too. What was this? Where was this? I struggled to make my eyes really focus on my surroundings and I saw the recovery room. I saw the nurses bustling at the bedside of this patient or that and I knew I was in the recovery room. I heard the noises that went along with it. But the hand that I felt…the smells…they were from ghosts or angels or something not visible or palpable to anyone else. One last squeeze, kisses brushed on each cheek and they were gone. The nurse approached my bed and asked if I was awake, if I was feeling any pain. And then she said, more to a nurse at another patient’s bed than to me, “you know, it’s weird, I smell perfume and tobacco. Do you smell it, too?” “No, I don’t smell a thing,” came the other nurse’s reply from a distance. “Hmm, it’s like being at my grandparents’ house,” said my nurse. That’s just how it was for me, too. And it was then that I knew everything would be okay.
Now, for entry number two:
I once held an interview with Brian, the founder of oneword.com. What? Don’t believe me? Here it is. Which means you get double the reading for half the price today.
I smell it too. Right now. Reading your post.
Comment by Cheri @ Blog This Mom! — November 25, 2008 @ 6:59 am
Wonderful. Tender. Nice little frisson at the end, as the nurses sense it too.
Comment by g — November 25, 2008 @ 8:09 am
Truly a lovely story; your telling it engenders the same feelings in us that you felt plus our own memories get tangled up in there as well. Awesome.
Comment by pamibe — November 25, 2008 @ 8:20 am
Great story!
Comment by jan — November 25, 2008 @ 9:30 am
Way to go. Good to see that your “prose power” did not suffer while you were away. Smell is a powerful memory trigger.
Comment by bob — November 25, 2008 @ 9:52 am
Oooh, very good! It gave me chills!
Comment by GW — November 25, 2008 @ 10:15 am
Thank you. It looks like the doctor left the writing portion of my brain intact.
Comment by DaGoddess — November 25, 2008 @ 10:29 am
Comment by Me — November 25, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Loved it. Did it really happen like that? I must know.
Comment by San Diego Momma — November 25, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
I held her in the waiting room, limp, cold, still breathing.
I held her on the table, she didn’t fight the mask or the needle.
I held her as the breathing stopped.
Comment by jan — November 25, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
Deb, yep. For reals.
Jan,
Comment by DaGoddess — November 25, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
Jan: I type with tears in my eyes as it will be one year this Friday since we held our Emily (15 year old cockapoo) in the same situation as you. Does it get any easier?
Comment by bob — November 25, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
I’m sorry for your loss, Bob. It gets a little easier I guess given enough time. But even two years… it still tears me apart inside, I loved her so much. I think you give a little piece of yourself to them when they become part of your life and they take it with them when they go.
Comment by Jan — November 25, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
Great, now my contacts are all scratchy again…
Comment by Jan — November 25, 2008 @ 8:13 pm
Wow…
Comment by tinsenpup — November 26, 2008 @ 3:40 am