Goodbye
August 17, 2006
I walked into my mother’s room and was immediately hit with a big gust of reality. I had noticed the disassembled pieces of her bed in the hallway, but didn’t think much about them until I walked into her room and saw my mother lying in a hospital bed. I couldn’t believe it. I had only been gone for one week, but in that one week everything had changed.
She lay there, pale, thin, her pear-shaped body completely diminished into flab. I could see her shiny scalp under a veil of her soft black hair. She smiled when I came in. I went over to her and hugged her softly and half-heartedly. I did not want to be there anymore. But I stayed a little while longer and answered her questions.
“Yes, I had fun.”
“Yes, I got to see my friends.”
“Yes, I had a good trip back.”
I continued on with my vague answers to her questions. I had to get out of there. Finally, I told her I needed to start unpacking and she let me go. In my room, I just sat there and tried to think about everything. Before then I had not let myself think that my mother might die. I had figured that it would be like the last time and that she would recover again. But that was just a dream and not even a close possibility of happening. The hospital bed had proved it. I know now that the bed was just to make things easier for her, but then it was a symbol for me. It meant that I could no longer deny her death. It meant that I would never get my mother back from the depths of sickness and depression that she was in.
What bothers me most now is not her actual death, but the death of everything I loved about her. This happened, or started happening, at least a year or more before her actual death. Depression had taken her over and only got worse as the sickness took effect. In the final months the cancer seemed to seep into her brain and eradicate everything I knew about her. She became a completely different person. She was weak and needy, which was understandable, but I was not used to that from her. I couldn’t really talk to her any more because she would get worried about the smallest things and would obsess about them until you practically had to lie to her to convince her that everything was going to be fine. This was so different from who she used to be that I could barely stand it. She was not my mother anymore. Many times I hated being around this person. I got mad at myself for feeling that way, but at the time, I didn’t know how else to feel.
When she died, I was glad that she had finally been put out of her misery. The last image I have of her was when she was lying in her bed, unconscious, breathing in and out rapidly and emitting disturbing sounds. I left the room quickly and a few hours later my dad came and told me that she had died. I went to my room and sat with the television on, not really listening to it, but not really thinking about anything either, just staring. My cousin, maybe out of either her own ignorance or maybe her astuteness in trying to make me feel better, suggested we go play tennis. I looked at her and practically spit out, “I can’t go play tennis now!”
“Why not?” she asked me. I looked at her again and tried to answer, but no words came. Why couldn’t I play tennis? Yes, my mother has just died, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t been expecting it. I was glad she was out of pain. I was selfishly glad that I wouldn’t have to see her in pain again and that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice so much for her. I hated myself for thinking that but in many ways it was true. Why couldn’t I go play tennis? My mother didn’t die today, she died many months ago. She died when the cancer reached in and took away her being, her personality. The person who died was not my mother, it was just her body. I still didn’t play tennis that day; it just didn’t seem right to me.
I don’t think about those few months very much anymore. At first I didn’t think about her or anything else about those few months for a long time. I guess it was sort of a denial of everything. I didn’t say her name; I didn’t look at her picture, nothing. Finally, I realized how stupid that was. I still don’t like to think about that period very much but now I think about other times, too. I think about good times, as cliche as that sounds. I think about our many shopping trips together, helping her cook brownies, or walking down the beach with her at sunset. I hate the fact that I will never get to spend time doing those things with her again, but I am grateful for the 15 years I did have with her.
~ Emily
