2004-06-16 - 2:47 p.m.
The Beginning of an End?
Yesterday, my sister told me about a dream she had the night before. In the dream, my siblings and I are sitting in church. It’s a gray day and the mood is solemn. My sister looks over her shoulder and several pews behind her sits our mother—old-looking and shriveled, shrouded in black, and talking to a small, old, wrinkled Mexican woman. My sister turns to me and says, “What is SHE [our mother] doing here?” This woke my sister.
The reality is that our mother, 56 years old, is old-looking and shriveled and confined to the bed that she is too weak to leave. Cancer is killing her, and she is so thin and bony—she looks like a frail, sick bird. When I arrived at my parents’ house Monday night, my sister told me to go see our mom, as our family and friends weren’t sure she’d live through the night. It was frightening to see her—she sleeps sitting up—her head, seeming too heavy for her body, hung to one side. Unable to swallow and talk, she was dehydrated and was in and out of consciousness. Our mother asked my sister if my sister heard the footsteps of our long-dead grandfather.
“No,” my sister said, “Do you?”
“Yeah,” my mother replied.
Then, my mother, ever eloquent, asked, “Am I croaking?”
“Do you feel like you're croaking?” my sister replied.
“Yeah,” whispered our mother.
The last couple of days have been bitter sweet. My niece graduated from eighth grade yesterday, the day we thought our mother wouldn’t wake up. Although she couldn’t recognize family members at times, she asked my sister if she could attend the graduation.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” my sister told her. “If you wake up tomorrow morning, you can go. Deal?”
“Deal.” said our mother.
Yesterday morning, as my mother slept, everyone else got ready for the graduation. Several aunts and female cousins came to stay with her while the rest of us went to the graduation. She woke while we were gone and asked for something to drink.
“If she gets through this,” my aunt B [my mom’s sister] said later, “she’s gonna fuck all you guys up! She KNOWS she missed the graduation. So you guys better watch it. You know that woman can get feisty.” (Eloquence runs in the family.)
So for the past three days, family members have been visiting—crowding her room, asking questions, and trying to make her comfortable. Yesterday she seemed a bit better, although she asked another of her sisters not to let [dead-musician] Ritchie Valens into her room. “He likes to gossip,” she whispered.
Today my mother seems better. She has a horrible rash on her legs and my sister asked if her legs hurt.
“No,” my mother replied, her voice stronger than it has been. “My ass does from sitting in this god-damned bed so long.”
She has her moments. She’s still uncomfortable, but she has an appetite. And I hope she does get well enough to beat the fuck out of all us. We’ll find out later when the hospice people get here.
