The Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell [60]
Every day my mother drove to the hospital and stayed there. When I went with her, I spent the day looking at Kevin in his bed or in Physical Therapy. When I had a chance to run off, I would. I ran up to the roof, looked at the city, and thought about Kevin. I also thought about my dad. I wanted him to take me away from this place. Unfortunately, my father didn’t have any idea that Kevin was even in the hospital, because my parents were divorced. They haven’t spoken to each other for two years. My mother thought it would be best if we didn’t tell him about Kevin’s illness. I wanted to tell him so I could feel like everything was going to be all right. But things weren’t going to be all right—and this secret was my ball and chain.
From the hospital, I could see the blue ocean in the distance, the same ocean that my brother and I used to play in. I hadn’t seen the ocean for about a year. I miss it.
When Kevin was released from the hospital, he lived with my mother and me in a one-bedroom apartment. The neighborhood was bad. He was placed in a local hospice program. In a way, being in the program made things easier to deal with, but Kevin wasn’t getting any better. There were still nights spent in the hospitals.
Kevin was bed-ridden, having seizures and hallucinations. No matter how bad the situation got, and how many times the doctors told me he was going to die, it just didn’t sink in.
I knew Kevin was suffering, maybe not physically, but mentally. How can a person cope with the fact that they came to the hospital walking and left four months later in a wheelchair? As I sat there watching him, I wondered what he was thinking. The doctors and medical staff had no idea of his mental status. Was he sane or was he delusional? If he was sane, in his physical state, it must have taken a toll on him, but what if he wasn’t? What if he was just a vegetable? Did he know who I was? Did he actually see me? I had so many questions, but no answers. I was afraid to sleep because I wasn’t sure when Kevin would have his next seizure. My worst fear was that I would wake up and find him dead. That thought alone was enough to keep me awake at night.
Months passed by, and Kevin saw his last Christmas and New Year, which was the worst time for all of us. We spent it in the hospital watching him choke on his food and water. A couple of days after the holidays, Kevin began to lose his reflexes and couldn’t swallow his own saliva. There was nothing we could do. We couldn’t help. We didn’t know what would happen next.
The last time I saw Kevin alive he was in the emergency room. He was asleep and he looked like an angel. There were no seizures and no more choking. For once, he seemed fine. I thought the nightmare was coming to an end. There would be no more hospitals, doctors, pills, or pain. Now there were only two roads he could take, or that God would allow him to take. One was recovery, by some type of miracle, and the other was death.
As we walked into Kevin’s hospital room the next day, the foul smell of death was choking me. I was shocked to see that Kevin’s body was placed in the ICU with five other critically ill patients, even though he was dead! The nurse pulled open the curtains around his bed to show Kevin’s lifeless body to my mother and me. The nurses had already “cleaned his body” and placed him in a white body bag. Only his head was poking out. My mother broke down in tears and I stood there in disbelief…He’s dead. He’s dead.
Junior Year Spring 1997
Entry 6. Ms. Gruwell
Dear Diary,
I just got off