Non-fiksi
Bab II
Senja Berbisik Pada Sunyi
22 September 2025
Waktu bagai air yang merembes pelan dari genggaman. Enam bulan telah mengalir begitu saja tanpa terasa. Hari-hari berat bagai mimpi Aviv yang terdampar di pantai pekat tak habis-habis. Aviv sendiri pun kadang tak percaya jika ia masih bisa membuka mata setiap pagi. Hari-hari penuh pengulangan, bolak-balik rumah sakit, mendapati dirinya dalam koridor panjang, dingin, dan berbau antiseptik menyengat diantara antrian pasien kanker lainnya yang tertatih-tatih, mirip seperti dirinya.
Lalu kursi roda yang berdecit kadang menemaninya jika sedang tak mampu berjalan, serta langkah pincang yang ditopang dengan tongkat apabila ia punya tenaga lebih di hari itu, dan satu-satunya pertolongan pertama yang dapat menghentikan pendarahan sebelum habis terkuras hanyalah radiasi nuklir.
Ada banyak momen yang sebetulnya tak ingin ia kenang, namun salah satunya yang terus membekas di penglihatannya adalah sinar radiasi luar yang menyapu sebagian tubuhnya;
“hingga kulitnya menghitam..menggosong”.
Dua puluh lima kali sinar itu diarahkan, dan berkali-kali pula tubuhnya harus dipindahkan: kadang dengan tongkat, kadang di atas kursi roda, bahkan tak jarang tubuhnya diangkat di atas ranjang dorong dari gedung sebelah menuju ruangan Radiasi di depan.
Kemudian setiap tetes darah pendonor yang mengalir ke dalam tubuhnya juga merupakan oase kehidupan bagi Aviv. Lima belas kantong transfusi — Ya, sebanyak itulah hingga Aviv sering bertanya dalam hati:
“Apakah tubuh ini masih tubuhku sendiri, atau kini aku hidup dari darah orang-orang asing yang berhati mulia?”
Bulan Mei menjadi saksi saat tubuhnya dipaksa menanggung ganda: radiasi luar sekaligus kemoterapi membuat rambutnya perlahan gugur, rasa logam di mulut berhari-hari, hingga rasa mual & kelimpungan yang membabi buta, namun Aviv tetap datang ke ruang perawatan itu, menggenggam keberanian yang setipis rambutnya.
Saat ia mengira badai telah mereda, nyatanya rumah sakit merujuknya ke fasilitas kanker lain untuk menjalani terapi berikutnya. Brakiterapi. Kata itu saja sudah membuat Aviv bergidik.
Empat kali prosedur dengan jarum-jarum menusuk rahimnya bukanlah hal yang mudah dijalani, demi mengeringkan serta membunuh sisa kanker yang masih membandel. Isak tangis kesakitan tak pernah luput darinya setiap menghadapi sesi. Hingga kini trauma fisik masih menghantui — seolah setiap detik, tubuhnya merasakan sengatan jarum yang menusuk, menyayat martabat dari luka tak kasatmata.
Di sela rasa sakit yang tak terlukiskan, ada pula kesedihan batin yang tak kalah menyiksa. Aviv tak ingin terus-menerus merepotkan Talia, wajah cemas adik kandungnya itu sering hadir di sudut kamar tempat ia dirawat. Ironisnya, kadang justru mantan kekasihnya lah lebih sering datang, ikut membantu, bahkan mendonorkan darahnya sendiri.
Bagi Aviv, kehadirannya seperti bayangan masa lalu yang enggan benar-benar pergi. Benar, Ia memang perhatian – namun bukan cinta yang seperti itu, sosok heroik ini seakan tak bisa di genggam meski terkadang tangan mantannya itu menyapu halus kepalanya diatas tempat tidur rumah sakit – atau sekedar menggengam tangan aviv agar tetap hangat.
Entahlah, Aviv sudah tak memikirkan lagi soal cinta dan masa lalu. Buat Aviv kehadiran mantannya seperti uluran tangan dari Tuhan. Di balik semua itu, Aviv bersyukur bahwa ia masih hidup, bisiknya pada batin yang lirih. Meski ia sempat kehilangan sepertiga darahnya di bulan Januari dan April, hingga dua kali pula Aviv masuk dalam kondisi kritis di ruang gawat darurat dimana ia merasa seakan sudah hendak dipanggil untuk ‘pulang’.
Sejak awal September, untuk pertama kalinya sejak berbulan-bulan, Aviv merasakan jeda dari jadwal rumah sakit. Masa break yang berlaku hingga 2 bulan mendatang sebagai masa pemulihan dari terapi dan persiapan tes MRI.
“Aviv berdiri di dekat jendela, memandang senja yang jingga. Sunyi berbisik padanya, membawa serta harapan yang kecil dan rapuh. Ia menarik napas dalam-dalam. Jalan pulihnya masih panjang dan berliku, tapi kali ini, ia memutuskan untuk mendengarkan bisik itu kedalam batinnya. Bisik tentang alasan untuk terus bernapas, terus melangkah, menuju pagi yang samar”.
(bersambung)
English version:
Twilight Whispers to the Silence
September 22, 2025
Time was like water seeping slowly through open palms. Six months had slipped away without notice. The heavy days felt like fragments of a dream- in Aviv’s dream—stranded upon a shore of endless darkness. At times, even she could hardly believe she still woke up each morning. Each day was a repetition: endless hospital visits, long sterile corridors that smelled sharply of antiseptic, and rows of cancer patients limping forward, much like herself.
Sometimes it was the squeak of a wheelchair that carried her when she could no longer walk. On better days, a cane supported her uneven steps. And when blood drained too quickly from her fragile body, the only first aid that could stop it was nuclear radiation.
There were many moments she wished to forget, yet one burned permanently into her memory: the searing light of radiation sweeping across her body..
“until her skin blackened, charred.”
Twenty-five times that light was directed at her. And twenty-five times her body was shifted: sometimes by cane, sometimes by wheelchair, sometimes carried upon a stretcher from one building to the Radiotherapy Unit.
Each drop of donor blood flowing into her became an oasis of life. Fifteen transfusion bags–yes, that many. And often, Aviv would wonder silently:
“Is this body still mine, or am I now alive only because of the noble blood of strangers?”
May bore witness to her body enduring double torment: external radiation alongside chemotherapy. Her hair fell strand by strand. For days her mouth tasted of metal. Nausea and dizziness struck without mercy. And yet, she still came to the treatment room, clutching courage as fragile as her thinning hair.
When she thought the storm had passed, the hospital referred her elsewhere-for another treatment. Brachytherapy. Even the word alone sent shivers through her.
Four procedures. Needles piercing her womb, again and again, in order to dry out and kill what cancer remained. The pain was unbearable, her sobs unavoidable. And even now, the trauma lingered as though every second her body still felt the sting of those needles, carving invisible wounds, stripping away fragments of dignity.
But it was not only the pain of the body that tortured her. The sorrow of the heart weighed just as heavily. Aviv despised burdening her sister Talia, whose worried face often appeared by her bedside. And yet, ironically, it was sometimes her former lover who came more often helping, supporting, even donating his own blood.
To Aviv, his presence was like a shadow of the past that refused to fade. True, he was attentive. But it was not love-not the kind of love one could hold onto. He was a figure who seemed heroic yet unreachable, even when his hand brushed gently over Aviv’s head on the hospital bed, or when he held her hand just to keep it warm.
Aviv no longer thought of love, nor of the past. To her, her ex’s presence was nothing less than God’s mercy. Beneath all of it, Aviv remained grateful—grateful simply to still be alive. Twice—once in January, once in April—she had lost a third of her blood, twice rushed into the emergency room, twice believing she was already being called home.
But in early September, for the first time in months, Aviv was given a pause from the hospital’s demands. A two-month break a time of recovery, a fragile window before her next MRI test.
Aviv stood by the window, gazing into the amber twilight. Silence whispered to her, carrying with it a fragile hope. She drew in a long breath. The road to healing stretched ahead, long and winding. But this time, she chose to listen to that whisper. A whisper that spoke of reasons to keep breathing, to keep moving forward, toward the faint promise of another dawn.
