bitterdiva

I shield you from the pain

My mother, a strong and sacraficial woman, told me last night that she has to go back in the hospital for another procedure. Mind you, the last time my mother went into the hospital for the same procedure, she was on the single pixilated line between life and death. Hopefully this time there will be no error, no tear, and no major loss of blood.

I remember the morning when I received the call; I was staying home from work on a bright and sunny Tuesday. I immediately knew something was wrong by the tone of my sister’s voice, I only get to hear that tone when something has gone wrong or when she’s in pain. They didn’t want to disturb me, they didn’t want me to worry, they wanted to be sure what the outcome was going to be, and if it were for the worse, they would’ve called me earlier.

The only adjective that comes into my mind about seeing my mother in the ICU is surreal. The woman that is strong for us children, the woman that is strong for her husband, needed her children to be strong for her. When I entered her room, she was unable to speak or open her eyes, her only connection to the visitors in her room was the sound of voices and communication with fingers. When I greeted her, I saw a smile on her face and an immediate waving of the finger at me- shaming me for leaving my life and heading to be with my family.

How could a person feel bad for their daughter to come and be with them when they’re barely out of the way of danger? I can barely even think about how I would’ve felt if I didn’t go and see her and something turned for the worse and she passed. I don’t think I could live with myself.

So ever since the news I’ve been one ball of hysterics, of trying to keep myself busy. It’s not working though; the images and thoughts are too powerful for myself to overcome. So I sit at work, with a box of tissues by my side trying to hide the fact that I’m shedding tears, a bottle of Advil to keep the cramps away, and the occasional free moment to rub the stuffed kitty on the top of my monitor.

It’s hard to think about life without my mother in it. It’s probably also useless for me to worry about something that I don’t have to worry about today, tomorrow that’s another story. For my little piece of advice today, I just say, be thankful and appreciative of your parents, no matter how much you may or may not like them. If you never had a good relationship with them, I apologize, you probably can’t understand what I’m going through. If you have a good relationship with them, then I just urge you to call them up and tell them how much you love them. You never know when they could leave you permanently.

11:23 AM

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Posted by: andy at March 25, 2002 05:52 PM

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