Rylan
I knock lightly on the door to the small office I haven’t set foot in for over four years.
I’m in such a different place now than I was back then, that it really doesn’t look like the same room at all as I open the door.
The paintings on the walls are brighter now, the room doesn’t feel like it’s caving in around me anymore, and I notice the light streaming in through the window, rather than the dark shadows that light creates.
I’m a different person than I was.
I have Violet to thank for that.
The only constant between my life then and my life now, is her.
She was the light back then, and she’s been that same light every day for the past year I’ve spent with her.
“Dr. Wilder.” The middle-aged woman smiles at me.
She’s a work colleague I don’t see often – this hospital is a big place, but yet I don’t think I’ll ever forget her face.
She was my counsellor for a year. I may not have thought that we made one single inch of progress in that time, but given that I’m here now and I’m doing so much better, I have to admit that maybe it did help me in some small way.
“Rylan, please,” I tell her as I take the seat she’s indicating I should sit in.
This whole set up feels like I’ve been sent to the principal’s office. I don’t know why I’m here, but I have a feeling in the pit of my gut that it’s serious.
“Rylan.” She smiles at me.
I don’t smile back; I can’t seem to make the muscles in my cheeks work.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you in here.”
“I am.”
“I was wondering if we could talk about your sister for a minute.”
I can’t fathom for a second what she would possibly want to talk to me about in regards to my sister.
Daisy has been gone for a long time now.
As much as I’m confused by this topic, I’m also proud of myself for thinking of Daisy without the pain and heartache I’ve long since grown accustomed to.
I’m making progress – they might only be small steps, like contacting some of the people I let slip away during my grief, but for me, it feels like a huge leap I’m taking in the right direction.
I know I have Violet to thank for that too.
I still don’t talk about Daisy a lot, and I haven’t managed to put up or even share with Violet all our old photos yet, but it’s progress, and my heart doesn’t ache the same way when I think of her anymore.
I still miss her like crazy, and I think there will always be a little piece of me that’s missing, but this is the most whole I’ve felt in a very long time.
“Rylan?” she asks, and I realise I never answered her.
“Sorry, sure, go ahead.”
“Do you recall, when you began your employment here, that you were asked to fill out a few pages of questions?”
I know exactly what she’s talking about.
The questionnaire is designed as a safe guard – a guide for the families and loved ones of the doctors and nurses that work in this hospital should anything ever happen to us.
I’ve seen what can happen in an emergency situation, a patient is brought in and their family has no idea what they would have wanted in terms of medical intervention.
When I started here, I answered questions about who I wanted notified if anything might happen to me, whether I’d want to be resuscitated or have my life artificially prolonged… if I agreed to have my organs harvested for donation or my body donated to science.
“I remember,” I tell her.
“Do you also remember giving authority at the time of Daisy’s death to honour all of the decisions she made on her form?”
My sister worked here too – she answered the same questions I did.
I nod, my throat feeling suddenly thick with emotion.
I can remember the moment as though it were only yesterday.
I signed that sheet of paper without a second thought – whatever Daisy wanted, that was what she got. She always knew better than me when it came to these kinds of things, but even if she didn’t, I would never have gone against the wishes of my sister on the day of her death.
I still don’t know what her final requests were, but I agreed to all of them without a moment’s hesitation.
“I have a letter here for you… it’s from a patient whom Daisy donated an organ to.”
I don’t even realise that I’ve been staring at the ground until I hear her words and my head snaps up.
“Daisy was a donor?”
She nods at me. “She donated to five deserving people.”
I don’t know why the possibility never occurred to me before now, but of course Daisy was a donor.
She was one of the most generous people I’ve ever met.
“No one told me,” I whisper.
“Perhaps you didn’t want to hear it?” she offers.
When Daisy was brought in, I couldn’t bring myself to ask the extent of the damage caused by the crash, let alone if something like organ donation was a viable option, so instead I stuck my head in the sand and questioned nothing at all.
Much like I did my friends, I shut out any and all things Daisy for a long time, so there’s a good chance someone did try to tell me, but I just wasn’t willing to listen.
I don’t know how I feel about the fact that there are five people out there in the world, each carrying around a little part of my sister, but I know that Daisy would have wanted it to be this way.
“You said there was a letter?” My voice is hoarse and scratchy.
She nods and hands it over to me. “I’ll give you a minute alone.”
I don’t look up as she exits the room.
There’s a thin envelope in my hands that feels like a heavy brick, and all of a sudden, I have to know what it says.
I tear the flap open and pull out the letter from inside.
My hands are shaking so badly it takes me a couple of attempts to read the first few lines, and when I do, the sheet of paper falls to the floor.
To the owner of my heart,
You don’t know me, and I know you can’t read this, but I still need to write it.
My name is Violet Miller, and four years ago, you saved my life…