by Tiffany Ochoa

I handed the phone to Nick, and he yelled at her to talk clearly. Finally, Stephanie was able to tell us that we had to go to Brookdale Hospital because my best friend Tasha, Nick’s sister, had been shot.

At 5:00 am on Sunday the 28th of January 2007, I woke up to get something to drink. My boyfriend Nick had left a Coke in the freezer. When I opened the bottle, it exploded all over the floor. My cell phone had died that night and just as I was cleaning up the mess, Nick’s cell started to vibrate violently. I knew something was wrong. On the other end of the line was Stephanie, a friend of mine. I could hardly understand her; her voice was broken and she was crying. I handed the phone to Nick, and he yelled at her to talk clearly. Finally, Stephanie was able to tell us that we had to go to Brookdale Hospital because my best friend Tasha, Nick’s sister, had been shot.

Nick and Tasha live in East New York, Brooklyn where it’s normal to see stabbings and hear gunshots at night. Tasha is only twenty-years old, and she has a beautiful three-year-old daughter named Jayleen. She is not the type of girl that you would see in the streets getting into trouble or doing drugs. Tasha never finished high school because she got pregnant at sixteen. Still, days before she was shot, she took her entrance exam for TCI, the Technical Career Institute, and started her first day of work in a party store in the Bronx. At TCI she planned to study to earn her GED and get a degree as a medical assistant.

Tasha is tall and slim with honey-glazed eyes and chestnut ringlets. You would never guess that she’s a mother. Tasha doesn’t have much, but she walks with pride and speaks with eloquence. We’ve known each other since childhood because our parents are also childhood friends. I remember going to family Halloween parties, where Tasha, Nick, and I would play and jump around. I even have a video of Tasha and her brother pinning the tail on the donkey at my 5th birthday party. She’s more of a big sister than just a friend. I look up to her because she has so many responsibilities. Tasha is not your stereotypical teen mother. Tasha’s mother suffers from depression so she can’t always be there for her youngest son, so Tasha takes time out of her hectic schedule to do homework and study with her little brother Nathan and care for her daughter.

February 26, 2007: Tasha left ICU. She didn’t notice me in the hallway. She didn’t look like the same Tasha I had known before. The glow that once inhabited her cheeks was replaced by pale, flaky skin. Her strong, beautiful nails were now dull and brittle. I stood there watching as she fidgeted about her bed and changed the TV channel. She was not as swollen like before. The room was cold, gray and smelled like bleach. There was a curtain hanging from the ceiling, separating Tasha and another girl. Her roommate had tried to commit suicide and Tasha was fighting to stay alive.

Tasha smiled at me and held her arms up, waiting for a hug. I was afraid to hug her too tightly because she seemed so frail. I could tell that she was progressing because she was off the respirator. Her arms were discolored from all the IV’s that she needed. She was talking, but she didn’t sound like Tasha, she sounded raspy from the respirator being lodged against her larynx for so long. Her eyes were very alert almost like she was frightened, but she told me that it was the medication. We sat there and watched General Hospital, our favorite soap opera, and ate burgers and fries like any normal day that we would hang out. During one of the commercials, doctors came in, all psychologists. They asked Tasha for privacy, which meant that I was supposed to leave.

She told them, “This is my sister, and she can listen to whatever you have to tell me.” They agreed to let me stay.

“So do you remember what happened to you?” Dr. Langman asked.

“Yes, I was shot at a party with some friends. There was a fight and some guys that were fighting started shooting, and they hit me three times,” Tasha replied.

“Were you aware of what was going on around you once you were shot?”

“Yes. I was on the floor and I couldn’t get up. A friend of mine dragged me behind a van, and we waited for like five minutes. The ambulance or the cops never came. My friend threw me in a car. I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was never gonna see my daughter again. Next thing I remember is being in the emergency room and them cutting off my clothes. Last thing I remember is waking up in the ICU.”

As I sat there I couldn’t help but think about what I would have been doing if Tasha died that night. All the hairs on my body stood on edge. Tasha looked over at me and grabbed my hand; almost as if she knew what I was thinking. The tears streamed down my cheeks, and I gripped her hands firmly, gently kissing them.

“Do you feel depressed?”

“No, I feel sad because this happened to me, but I’m glad to be alive.”

“How have you been dealing with this?”

“Well, it’s hard because I have dreams about what happened to me and I wake up sweating,” Tasha said.

Tasha was so reserved. She simply sat there quickly answering each question they threw at her. I was a complete mess by this time. My cheeks burned as I tried to hold in my tears and Tasha stroked my hands. At that moment I felt as if I were the victim and Tasha the visitor.

“Do you want us to prescribe you something to help you sleep?” Dr. Langman asked.

“No because I don’t want to get addicted, I want to sleep on my own.”

“Well what happens from here?” Dr. Langman asked.

“I just want to go home and be with my family. I don’t want to talk about what happened anymore. If I am around the important people in my life like my daughter I will get better.”

Seven weeks after Tasha comes home, she still has the same dreams about getting shot. But they aren’t as frequent and intense as they used to be in the hospital. Tasha tells me that she has dreams reliving that night about four times a week. When she does have them, she wakes up and stays awake for hours until her heart stops beating so fast. This is probably why she always looks so tired.

This past weekend, Tasha and I were listening to music and just hanging out. Nick had just come home with pizza and some new CDs. As Tasha and I were eating, he put in a Jadakiss CD. Jadakiss is a rapper known for explicit content and “gangster” lyrics. The first song that played started off with chimes and then led into loud gunshots. Immediately I looked up at Tasha, she was motionless with her pizza in her hand like a deer caught in headlights. I unplugged the radio.

Tasha told me that she wants to leave New York, and I asked where? She said she wants to go to Florida with her father. I tried telling her that what happened wasn’t her fault, and that it could have happened anywhere and to anyone.

Loud noises also terrify Tasha. On her third day home, some family came over her house to bring food and gifts. A balloon popped and Tasha jumped. She froze. I could tell something was wrong. Her eyes were wide and glossy, and her body began to shake. I stood beside her soothing her arm and rubbing her back. No one else seemed to notice, but I did.

Last Tuesday, Tasha went to the police precinct to make her statement. She hasn’t watched the surveillance tape of that night yet. I felt uncertain about asking her whether or not she ever wants to see the tape. I wasn’t a psychologist and it hasn’t been a month yet, but my instincts tell me that she is suffering from PTSD. When I tell her to talk about what she has been through to her doctor, she says that she feels more confident talking with a friend than a complete stranger. I tell her that sometimes talking with a stranger helps because you don’t owe anything to that person, therefore you don’t hold anything back, but then we just change the subject. I don’t want her to think that I’m pushing her or that I think she has mental problems, so I just listen and give my opinions.

It has been hard on Tasha’s family and me. It makes me cry when I think about what happened because I was supposed to go out with her that night. I stayed with her brother because it was late. I have pictures taken seconds before she walked out of the door and into harm’s way. Often I think about how I could have been shot if I had gone out with Tasha. Now that I think about it, often I feel like I bailed out on her. Had I gone, maybe she would have gotten into the cab two minutes earlier, and she wouldn’t have been shot. I know that I couldn’t change what happened, but I wish I could turn back time. Nick has been struggling with dealing with what happened to his sister. He is happy that she is alive, but sometimes he seems resentful toward Tasha because he says that she shouldn’t have been out clubbing in the first place because she has a daughter. Nick loves Jayleen unconditionally. He is always playing with her and buying her toys and she is a spitting image of Tasha. Sometimes I think he is angry that Jayleen could have lost her mother and Nick, his sister.

After three surgeries, Tasha was left with four scars that will be with her forever. She has one on her left side that extends from her breast to her scapula, in which doctors had to remove her spleen and left kidney; one from her lower abdominal region to her diaphragm, and two bullet wounds, one where the bullet went in and the other where it came out. Without her spleen Tasha must be very cautious about minor things such as a cold because anything could cause an infection and possibly be fatal. Even though many people live with one kidney, eventually that kidney could shut down from being so overworked. I know Tasha thinks about these risks.

All of her scars are healing, except the one on her abdomen. This is the scar that Tasha hates the most because it left her without her belly button. I can remember sitting in Tasha’s room watching as she changed her dressings to the open wound on her stomach.

“Can I see?” I asked as she tenderly wiped her wound.

“You sure?” Tasha asked.

“I’m gonna be a nurse, Tash, I need to get ready for these kind of things,” I responded.

“It’s kind of gooey. I even hate to look at it,” she giggled.

“It’s not even as bad as I thought it would be. It’s healing fast. I remember when it was all open. That’s good Tash, just keep taking care of it and it will be healed before you know it.”

“Tiff, I don’t even have a belly button anymore!”

“Who cares!!! You can always get it back with cosmetic surgery in the future. You got shot and you’re alive. Be grateful that all you lost was your belly button and not your ability to walk because just two centimeters to the right and it would’ve hit your spinal cord.”

“I know. I am grateful, but I just started getting skinny and being comfortable with my stretch marks after having Jayleen. Now I have to cover up again. I think this is gonna be the hardest for me.”

“Don’t worry babe. You’re still skinny and trust me there are plenty of moms out there with ugly C-section scars and they have no shame showing off their guts.”

“Yeah, that’s true and I’m still young, so I can always work out my abs when I get stronger. Plus some of those women are like three times bigger than me and they wear bikinis,” Tasha giggled.
“You see there you go, some positive thinking.”

“Tash, do you think you’ll ever get over this for good without talking to a psychiatrist? Maybe it could help.”

“I don’t think I will ever get completely over it, but I know I will learn to live with what happened to me. I mean I have no other choice, but I won’t live in fear for the rest of my life if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, but what about your nightmares? You even said you wanted to move to Florida because you’re afraid of it happening again. I don’t want you to go, but I want you to get better,” I cried out.

“Tiff, I am getting better. This is not gonna go away. I have to live with this. I have to live with these scars. But now I appreciate everything I have more than I did before. I have a gorgeous daughter that I never wanna leave her alone and she makes me stronger because she still loves me even if I look different.”

“But we love you, too.”

“I know you guys love me and I’m grateful to have you guys here to help me every step of the way, but I can’t have help all my life. I have to be a mother to my daughter, and it’s her energy that keeps me going every day.”

I smiled and it was then that I knew that Tasha has her whole life to live and she has her daughter to look after. She has plenty more birthdays to celebrate and plenty more cuts and scrapes to kiss. It will be hard for her to forget and it will be hard for me not to worry so much, but we will get through it together. She’s fighting to regain her life and is surrounded by people who love her and that’s all that matters.

***

Tiffany Ochoa was born and raised in Queens, New York, where she lives with her mother and stepfather. She is a junior at Lehman College in the Bronx where she is majoring in nursing. She works at a daycare and at a children’s apparel store. She plans on becoming an intensive care nurse in order to help people like Tasha. Tiffany wants her readers to know that Tasha has been doing great and has made a full recovery. Tasha works as a part-time cashier and is now studying to become a medical assistant.