Lucy

The tragic day of pulling the plug had finally arrived. Lucy was on life support for last 6 months. She could not breathe by her own and had developed ventilator associated pneumonia, which had made her condition even worse. Her sufferings were only increasing for last two months. On the suggestion of doctors and watching her endless sufferings, Her family had finally decided to pull the plug to end get her out of the torment.

Lucy was a 11 years old with blue eyes and baby pink lips. She was the most beautiful in the family. She had one younger brother who did not even know what his sister was going through. Lucy was a patient of asthma and often found it difficult to breathe. Her situation had worsen on new year’s eve. The fireworks that they enjoyed that night caused her health to deteriorate and had an hysterical effect on her.

She was admitted to Intensive care unit after all the failed attempts to give her lungs the oxygen through various machines. When she failed to recover, she was put on to ventilator. There was no recovery in her health after 4 months of various medications, surgeries and continuous drip of sediments. Her condition got even worse from last two months and she could barely open her eyes, hear or feel anything after that. There was a surgically created hole through the front of her neck and into her windpipe allowing her to survive for a long time. Even the doctors suggested it would be wise to take the life system off and bring Lucy out of her agony. They had lost all the hopes to bring her back to life. So they had decided to pull the plug on one unfortunate morning.

All the family members had gathered around her, they were all in tears. Her mother had shown great courage to be the one who would pull the plug. Lucy’s face had gone pale, her lips had lost its pinkish colour and had turned into brown. Her mother was sitting on a stool beside her watching at the face of her beautiful kid.

She touched her face many times and swirled her hands into her hair. Their world was getting to an end. The moaning had became clearer with the every minute passing. Even the doctors could not hold his nerves and left the scene with the tank of tears in his eyes. Lucy’s mother kissed her on both of her cheeks and put her hand on the plug. She started shaking and found the plug immovable like a mountain. And a continuous stream of tears rolled down through her cheeks as the whole mountain had fallen on her. In the lane of those tears she watched Lucy smiling and playing around her.

Lucy’s father standing by the side of her mother. He held her tight and gave her the confidence that Lucy will be very happy if we let her free from her misery and make her way to heaven. She deserves to get out of this, We will someday meet her at the gate of heavens.

She watched Lucy coming and sitting on her lap asking her to do what is necessary. Lucy held her mother’s hand and moved it forward towards the plug and made her pull the plug. As soon as she pulled the plug a smiling Lucy disappeared from her mother’s eyes. Doctors had given proper medication to make last moments of Lucy as comforting as possible. After thirty minutes or so of watching her struggling to breathe they prayed for it to end as early as possible. And she passed away.

It was the longest hour of their life, which sufficed countless number of tears, heart breaks and moaning that only grew with each second. It also had an act of courage which made the Lucy free from her ordeal. It was the melancholy that filled all the broken hearts present in the room. And Lucy went for a peaceful sleep.