Last Piece

All I could do was stare at it.

I wanted to put it in my mouth, letting it melt and sweet, creamy goodness slide into my aching throat oh, and of course eventually into my stomach. When I was little, my body was too sensitive to the chemicals of throat lozenges, and I couldn’t take much in the way of cough syrup without terrible side effects. Almost all medicine caused me problems, until one of my remedies was to use small, chocolate candies that melted and slid down my throat, easing the ache and raw edges of any cold or flu.

I looked at the small, chocolate candy now, my body worn and tired from months of feeling sick. I savored the prospect of that small bit of chocolate sliding down my throat, and the sweet lifting my spirits, because there was no medicine that was going to do it any better. I looked at the depth of its color, and the creaminess of the milk that I knew meant that the sugar was so very high in this small piece of wonder. I imagined what it would be like as it sat on my tongue, the top edge grazing the roof of my mouth until it shrunk to a point I was pressing my tongue up to that roof and letting the liquid melt the chocolate light slowly and delicately into my body.

The wrapper was already peeled back. The naked, unapologetic sweet sitting delicately in the palm of my hand. I sighed as I remembered what it felt like to have that package of chocolate candy sitting next to me, a pile of tissues soaked from my illness not far, and that little bit of chocolate, unwrapped and swallowed over and over again, giving me relief from whatever I was suffering. I ached for the taste of that memory, and the feeling of the cool fingertips of my mother taking the heat from my brow.

Now, with a diagnosis of diabetes, that piece of chocolate was worse than any of the medicines my body rejected. It was death sitting in the palm of my hand, but part of me didn’t care. I didn’t care that too much of that sweetness would steal any hope my body had of staying in balance and not falling into that oblivion when my blood sugar would rise into unmanageable heights, with no one near enough to shoot me up with insulin and pray that this time my body wouldn’t bounce around, playing with chemical balances that could throw me into the bowels of death should I not recover well enough.

Did this one small bit of chocolate matter now that there was a pile of empty wrappers next to my too sick body?

As I stared at it, I wondered if this would be the last one. It was the last of the package, and every bite before had warranted just as much contemplation. As the last, it was the piece that would have to mean the most - or nothing, if my body rallied and no one would know that I had given in to the temptations of chocolate, the thrill of the potential of discovery, and the only danger that I had left as I had grown old and far less resilient.

I had bought these little pieces of magical wonderment when I had decided to make a chocolate cake for my granddaughter's birthday. They were supposed to be pressed into the sides, giving the cake texture and a bit of whimsy. I don't know why I had kept them aside. Perhaps my idea had not been as wonderful as I had originally thought, and instead I had made chocolate swirled rosettes, with just a tinge of pink frosting. I had created a fantasy of chocolates and pink, and she had been very pleased. The first slice that she had was not her last, and I found that she came over 3 or more days after her birthday, and on each day had an additional slice.

That was before the hospital. That was before the days and days of pain and sleeplessness, and the eventual discovery that being in the hospital had no value whatsoever. All I had left was hospice care, and the privilege of dying in my own bed at a time that was not far off in the future.

I had forgotten about the bag of chocolates. I had forgotten all about what it meant to avoid those chocolates because of what they would do to my body. I had forgotten how very terrible medicine had been when I was little, and that the only thing that I could do to relieve my body at that time was the very thing I had to avoid most now.

Slipping that piece of chocolate between my lips would be pure heaven. It had taken every ounce of energy that I had to get to the cabinet, and then again to climb back into my bed. The nurse would be back soon, so there wasn't much time. Hearing the slam of the door, I knew I had to eat it now or forever have it taken away. She would find the wrappers and scold me like I was a child, and not a woman who had children, grandchildren, and a long life of deciding when to eat chocolate that happened long before she came into my bedroom with her rules and needle sticks.

I slipped that piece of chocolate between my lips, old and twisted in on each other as they were, and then I leaned back to fall into a twilight that could not be pierced by the scolding, the bustling about, and the frantic scatterings of activities to keep me alive.

That last piece of chocolate was the last of my pleasures, and I had savored the rich liquid as it slid into my body, even knowing the damage it might do. I lay in wait, blocking out everything else but that lingering sense of freedom that had come from that simple bite.