That old gum shoe
When a friend of mine was dying of AIDS, he was surrounded by his friends who sat hospice with him and helped care for him in his final weeks. His family was almost restricted from being there as they were of no help. One of the many things he said during moments of lucidity and not was that he was a detective, a gumshoe, who would always got his man.
At 3AM this morning, my mother’s stable condition turned to serious as the DTs hit with a vengeance – by the time I got there she was telling me that Uncle Huey was outside in old blue and wanted her to go for a ride. As she rode the wave of lucidity, she told me at one point that I was just like Nurse Ratchet and at another point that she was blessed to have me.
My sister called to scream at me in the phone because I had allowed them to restrain her – but after she had yanked out her IV and been found all over the room trying to escape – restraints seemed like the most humane thing that could be done with her during this critical period.
After a few hours, while I was trying to soothe her and get her to take deep breaths, my mother looked at me in the eye and said, “You just wait.”