Scarlet Sims - The Door, 2026

24x36 - oil on canvas

As my mother lay dying in the ICU unit, her husband secretly ordered the nurses to continue the medication that forced her heart to beat. Just before midnight, as I held her slowly cooling hand, I saw a door appear in the room beside her bed. It was a white farmhouse styled door that shimmered into being.

The door was closed, and I could see blue-white light coming from its edges and a blue-sliver thread stretched from my mother’s forehead to the door. She breathed a death sigh, yet she continued. The heart monitor continued to beep and the medicine continued to drip from the saline bag even as rigor mortis began solidifying in her fingers and toes. 

The door stayed closed. She couldn’t leave. Mom existed in the in between, her energy hovering in the room with an electric hum, as she tried to open the door. Her dead heart continued to pump. She remained tethered. 

The nurses grew angry, their movements jerky and hostile as my mother’s husband, sitting in a corner, stared at his phone. He had spent the past few hours looking at his phone as my mother lay dying. He did not see the door, which still sat closed.

At last, I extricated my hand from hers. Her hand stayed upright – the rigor mortis had run the length of her arms and into her neck. At the front desk, I asked the nurse: “Mom seems to have rigor mortis setting in. Is this normal?” The nurse flattened her lips into a long line and waited before answering.

“The drip is keeping her heart going,” she said.

“Is that humane?” I asked. The other nurse beside her tried to shush my nurse, but she shook her head and answered me. “No. It is not,” she said. “Your stepfather insisted we keep it going.” 

Like a ghost, I forced myself to stand in front of my mother’s husband as I begged him to stop the drip, stop the torture. By the time he agreed, I no longer could see the door, but I felt it when it opened and released her from her cage.