Winner of Prompt 7 – FaceFlash72
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1363421828089572
Again, 72 words or less in 72 hours. This time, the prompt was “air.” My story, “Oxygen,” helped me reflect on an element of my grandmother’s life experience. She gracefully accepted oxygen assistance in her final years and all that it entailed: a nasal cannula, nostrils moistened with Vaseline, being tethered to a lengthy cord, the sound of the giant oxygen cannister in her house that gurgled and clanked like a swimming pool filter. It wasn’t pretty, but it gifted her with more energy and made her more comfortable. Grandma passed away this year.
My oldest child needed oxygen assistance within an hour of his birth. He spent weeks in Neonatal Intensive Care. My grandma never used oxygen at the same time her first great-grandson did. This piece is about neither my grandmother or my baby, but those experiences informed the writing of “Oxygen” and helped me process those things in a way I never had before. In fact, I never knew I needed to process those things until the prompt was “air.”
Oxygen
Twin oxygen cannulas keep them alive. Grandma cradles her tiny great-grandson and they both turn teary. When his whimpers become wails, she shushes him with the sound of air escaping from her lips and holds his ear to her beating heart. The day he learns to breathe independently, drops of wistful joy roll down the wrinkled gullies of her cheeks. No longer twins, his oxygen helped him to live; hers, to die.
I thank God for the gift of oxygen–not just for the air we breathe–but for the medical intervention that He used to bless two people I deeply love.
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