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I went to the hospital for the afternoon visiting hour and a half and I asked for a comb so that I could get the knots out of mom’s hair. I combed through almost rastafarian type mats. After that I put moisturizer all over her face, especially where they had moved the tape around her lower cheeks from the tube for the vent. Then I made a small braid on the side of her hair.

She never woke up except once when I was saying “mom, mom, mom!” trying to get her to engage with me. She opened her eyes and smiled and then closed them. Or at least tried to close them, the one where she fell and had surgery remains partially open all the time.

I took her hands that are puffy with fluid and tried to massage them and pinched her fingers. Then I pinched her toes that have those inflated shoes on them so that they massage her feet constantly. Her calves are like little sticks, almost Little Mermaid like sticks.

Towards the end of my visit, I just stood there looking at her and holding her hand and my chest felt like something was sitting on top of it of gigantor proportions. What now? What next? What? It’s just a huge puzzle. If my mom dies, I will be sad for the rest of my life missing her. If she lives, what does that mean? Long term care? What?

It’s one of those situations that is fraught with no good answer. Yes, there is always that singular chance, a miracle, that she uses this as a wake up call, gets better, and undertakes a brand new life. But since I’m 50 years old, I don’t put a lot of stock into these sorts of James Brown turnaround acts.

So the elephant on my chest just sits there as if he has no where else to go.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.