I had a very low key birthday over the weekend. Yesterday my brother took us out to dinner in my honour. At the restaurant Mom developed a moment of weakness and started to hunch over her big bowl of soup, as if her face were destined to meet the hot liquid, wontons, beef balls, and rice noodles. No surprise there, she was finally released from hospital just that morning so she must have been exhausted from the whole experience. She was freezing, too. I turned to my brother and said, "We're sitting under the fucking air vent!" and insisted we take her home immediately.
We asked the server to doggy bag our food, I told my older brother D go to retrieve his Mercedes so Mom didn't have to walk far, my younger older brother D took care of the tab, and I tried to keep Mom warm by rubbing her back despite the cold air blowing onto it, and we waited til D showed up at the curb.
A chunk of the day on my actual birthday on Saturday was spent with Mom in her hospital room. She had been sick these past few weeks and this is the second time she was hospitalized in a month. She began bleeding out her backside and when I had to clean the bathroom for the third time and she grew quite weak was when my brother took her to the emergency room. She ended up needing several transfusions of new blood and was admitted for several days. When she stopped bleeding she was discharged and came home, but a few days later she had to go back.
When she was in hospital she got a colonoscopy twice. After observing her, Doctor diagnosed her with diverticulosis, a bad condition that affects many old people and could be very dangerous if left untreated. In Mom's case it was in part due to some of ther medicines, and in part to not having enough fiber in her diet.
I went to see her every day she was in hospital. She's home now.
Personally I'm not making a big deal out of my birthday weekend. My concern is with my mom.
Since I don't worship and pray to any god and thus am not one who does faith in that manner, I choose to be philosophical about this and remain strong.
Mom will eventually die. When that will happen is anyone's guess. But I know that my desire, both selfish and selfless, is to make what remaining time she has as comfortable, as comforting, and as rich as possible before she must go.
I felt and thought the same about my dad, which is why I originally moved down here to California. I came to help Mom care for him, but a month after my arrival he finally bowed out of this life. So now Mom's turn is steadily approaching, and I want to do the same for her as she had so beautifully and lovingly done for Dad.
It's funny, what I felt while visiting her at hospital. Each time before I'd leave her to go home I'd stroke her hair, tell her to be good and not to give the nurses a hard time, and tell her I love her. I felt that with each word with her, with each stroke of her hair, I at once was closer to her than I was a moment before, more enriched than I was a moment before, and mortally distant from her than a moment before.
It's one of the most beautiful feelings. Connectedness through eventual separation.
The tears I shed as I type this are not ultimately tears of sadness. These tears are far, far too complex to label as a mere emotional reaction.
But then humanness, and the profundity of human existence....well, that's far too complex to express with tears alone.
We asked the server to doggy bag our food, I told my older brother D go to retrieve his Mercedes so Mom didn't have to walk far, my younger older brother D took care of the tab, and I tried to keep Mom warm by rubbing her back despite the cold air blowing onto it, and we waited til D showed up at the curb.
A chunk of the day on my actual birthday on Saturday was spent with Mom in her hospital room. She had been sick these past few weeks and this is the second time she was hospitalized in a month. She began bleeding out her backside and when I had to clean the bathroom for the third time and she grew quite weak was when my brother took her to the emergency room. She ended up needing several transfusions of new blood and was admitted for several days. When she stopped bleeding she was discharged and came home, but a few days later she had to go back.
When she was in hospital she got a colonoscopy twice. After observing her, Doctor diagnosed her with diverticulosis, a bad condition that affects many old people and could be very dangerous if left untreated. In Mom's case it was in part due to some of ther medicines, and in part to not having enough fiber in her diet.
I went to see her every day she was in hospital. She's home now.
Personally I'm not making a big deal out of my birthday weekend. My concern is with my mom.
Since I don't worship and pray to any god and thus am not one who does faith in that manner, I choose to be philosophical about this and remain strong.
Mom will eventually die. When that will happen is anyone's guess. But I know that my desire, both selfish and selfless, is to make what remaining time she has as comfortable, as comforting, and as rich as possible before she must go.
I felt and thought the same about my dad, which is why I originally moved down here to California. I came to help Mom care for him, but a month after my arrival he finally bowed out of this life. So now Mom's turn is steadily approaching, and I want to do the same for her as she had so beautifully and lovingly done for Dad.
It's funny, what I felt while visiting her at hospital. Each time before I'd leave her to go home I'd stroke her hair, tell her to be good and not to give the nurses a hard time, and tell her I love her. I felt that with each word with her, with each stroke of her hair, I at once was closer to her than I was a moment before, more enriched than I was a moment before, and mortally distant from her than a moment before.
It's one of the most beautiful feelings. Connectedness through eventual separation.
The tears I shed as I type this are not ultimately tears of sadness. These tears are far, far too complex to label as a mere emotional reaction.
But then humanness, and the profundity of human existence....well, that's far too complex to express with tears alone.
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1 comment:
That's a beautiful post, thankyou. Not much else to say from me except *hugs*
I have a friend who passed away after illness earlier this year, I had to write about it too. We all have similar stories, and it binds us together in commonality.
Jonathan from Spritzophrenia
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