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Tuesday
I still
remember that Tuesday, that feeling. My 4 year-old son, tethered
tightly into the metal cart, and I were slowly traversing the shiny,
tiled, wide aisles as I filled the cart with the week’s menu items.
Doritos. Cool Ranch. My waistline and brain were in the middle of a
heated debate over the chips’ fate when Jack’s high-pitched version of
“Yankee Doodle Dandy” faded out. I focused, not so much on the bag, but
on the fact that it was Tuesday. Not just any Tuesday, but the Tuesday
that follows the dreadfully punctual monthly Monday that had spent the
last 11 years of my life, save a precious 12 months thanks to my first
child, making me desperately want to phone God to discuss why he hated
women so much. It’s a strange feeling, instinct.
As I
snatched the blue bag from the shelf and tossed it into the cart with
one hand, my other was already busy rifling through the eight pounds of
necessities in my oversized purse in search of my day planner. Although
the box springs would vehemently argue, we really weren’t trying to get
pregnant again. A frightening calm settled as I moved past the toiletry
aisle and made my way to the checkout, phone numbers in hand. There was
no point in procuring a pregnancy test when I already knew that I was
pregnant, as if by holding the doctor’s number in my hand was enough to
confirm it. That was the beginning of my relationship with John.
The tub
An
energetic young voice, followed by quick and increasingly louder
footsteps echoed into the second floor bathroom. “Mom…mom, where are
you?” From my teetering position, one foot in the metal soap alcove of
the wall and the other desperately clinging to the lima bean green
porcelain of the tub edge, I announced my location and returned to my
merciless attack on the last colony of rebellious soap scum trying to
stake its claim on my shower tile. The small hand grabbed my calf and I
was reminded that I was not ready to pass on because when my life
flashed before me, it left me somewhat wanting. I carefully stepped
down from my perch and tried to act as if I hadn’t just had a brush with
death as I settled onto the tub wall, eye-to-eye with my 3-year-old son
John. “Life is hope, Mom…life is hope.” I’d have thought that I would
have broken my neck the way my focus shifted from the half-attached
Barney Band-Aid on his skinny left knee to his innocent, yet sure brown
eyes. “Okay,” I responded, a pleasant reminder that just because we are
older does not mean that we are any wiser. “That’s all,” he shrugged as
he slipped back out the white, wooden doorway and snatched away my
chance for a mother-son deeply intimate conversation. My jaw fought to
avoid the floor as my mind raced back to my college Intro to Philosophy
class and decided that he might have proven useful back then. I
pondered my little Dali Lama as I resumed my post, oblivious to how
important those three words would be.
My family
I sat in
the third row of red, velvety cushioned seats of the high school
auditorium that night, since the first two rows are just too close, with
my husband and other two sons as I watched 16 year-old John conversing
on the elaborately designed stage. Mesmerizing. We were a musical
family and had all been in one production or another, displaying our
lucky genes, but even fending off a bit of a cold, he commanded
attention and made you forget where you were the way a 25 foot away
hallway glimpse of your high school crush could freeze everyone else and
allow you to follow every wisp of silky brown hair on his head settle
into place as he stopped at his locker three feet from you... and then
you realized you weren’t breathing. The thunderous applause was no
match for my galloping heart as I stood to cheer, so full of pride and
love for my son that I was sure I would explode. Man. I glanced at my
family next to me and back to John, graciously beaming as he bowed, and
knew that I had truly been blessed
With the
play finishing tonight and John’s hectic schedule easing up, we were
finally able to convince him to get to the doctor to take care of this
achy, exhausting cold he’d been trying to knock. Instinct. Left me out
to dry on that one. The bed
Lifting my
head off my hands and not bothering to wonder, or care, whether it was
tears or slobber matting my two-day-old hair to the corner of my mouth,
my glazed eyes begin to focus on the blinking green light a foot from
John’s head. I sat up straight in my chair-turned-bed of the last three
years and ignored the protests of my lower back. His heart is still
beating. He is still alive. There is still hope. He’d gotten sick so
quickly. In and out of hospital after hospital, seeing doctor after
doctor and getting medication then surgery then medication then
surgery. Not once did he lose hope.
Now he lies
in this aluminum bed, in this cold room, hooked up to seemingly endless
cords and machines. It is almost over. Earlier this week, things had
gotten hairy. While my husband and I, with our newfound medical
knowledge courtesy of a three year medical crash course in trying to
divide and conquer my son’s assailant, were weighing the options of
different treatment alterations to try next, he said it. “I’m ready.”
In unimaginable pain and confined to a bed where each position hurt
worse than the next, he was still able to floor me with his succinct
wisdom. As a mother about to lose her child to disease and wanting to
spare him as much pain as possible, I agreed. He’d been so valiant, and
vicariously through him, I’d never allowed myself to give up either.
Now, in the midst of the end, he lays unconscious except for invaluable
seconds of clarity when he reassures us that he is going on his terms;
then fades back into a restless sleep.
I stare at
my 20 year-old baby and remind myself that he is better off without his
feeding tube. Pain meds and love are the treatment of choice from here
out. He’s going home. Ignoring the now second nature flow of tears
down my cheek, I tell him how proud I am of him and how much we all love
him and how he’ll always be with me. “Life is hope, Mom…life is
hope.”
For Deej
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