prepared for the worst 2005

I was fully prepared for the worst when I thought it was going to happen. I had to be the strong one, I had to show everyone that they could count on me. But I never thought about someone close to me dying, someone I just thought would always be around, someone that would live to their old age.
Well, I guess people worry about me and my heath because bad things could happen to anyone, but I thought I proved myself before, I proved myself to all the doctors and the nurses and all the technicians and even the cardiologists. Even the intern who told my sister I’d never recover form a vegetative state, how could they trust a man who’d have sex with a married woman, but I guess people are used to people being ignorant backstabbers. I wonder if all of those people thought of me now. I’m sure they don’t. They’d have to be reminded of me. They don’t know me, what would they remember me, it’s just me.
I fully prepared myself for the bed news, I was wondering if I would even get the chance to see the corpse, depending on our timing and when we got to the hospital. I don’t deal with death much, I’m usually not at the hospital as it’s happening, I’m just not used to this. But I knew I’d have to emotionally clean up for this and I’d have to be ready for this and this was something I might have to be prepared for, in case it happened.
How do you prepare yourself for something like that? I mean, I’m a girl, I’m used to women wanting to openly cry when they hear bad news. I’m used to women falling apart at the seams and I’m used to men never falling apart at the seams. Is that something that makes man and women different, of is that something men and women just learn with time?
Anyway, I was busy preparing myself for the worst, so I wouldn’t fall apart when the bad news was sent to my door. Am I supposed to deal with news like this when I just hear it, when it’s just told to me, am I supposed to just fall apart then, or am I supposed to be the strong one and take it all and be prepared for it?
Well, I was prepared for the worst and I was prepared for people to be crying when they got to the hospital with me and I was prepared to be strong for the people who needed someone to rely on and help them through this. I made this decision that this was something I had to do and I was just going to have to deal with that fact, maybe today, maybe later.
I got there and there was no bad news, no one was dead or dying, and everything was normal. Well, normal in a hospital as far as I can tell. I’m not an expert on normalcy in hospitals. I’m not an expert on these things. But there was no bad news, and I visited people and talked a little in the hospital, and everyone wanted me to talk to prove to everyone they knew me, well, they wanted me to talk to prove that I was normal and I was fine. “And this could happen to you,Ó I said, ÒAnd you have to want it and you have to make yourself better.” I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say.
I still haven’t entirely dealt with what that day could have been like if it was someone else’s last day. But I prepared myself for it. Just in case.

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Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers
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