Why didn’t I take the time to ask? To learn these things? To spend more time getting to know the inner workings of my parents?
Why did I assume we had more time?
Lost in my own hurricane of grief thoughts, Penelope and Apollo are suddenly by my side, helping me up off the floor. Apparently I collapsed onto my knees at some point during my breakdown. Guess my sobs brought them into the room.
They try to sit me onto a chair, but I’m done here, there’s nothing left in this room but pain. I can’t say goodbye to this man, not now, not ever. How do I say goodbye to someone I don’t ever want to lose?
Another bolt of excruciating anguish lodges itself in my heart making it hard to breathe. Will I ever be able to breathe without agony again?
Stepping out of the room, I search for Nurse Dave and nod at him when I see him. “I need to see my mom.” I sound like a little boy, and I feel like one.
Last night I went to bed loved, safe, secure, and sure, I’ve been a dick these past couple weeks but they knew me, they knew I was going through a rough time, right? I was a decent son, right?
Fuck.
The tightness in my chest ratchets up a notch.
So many questions making my temples throb and my stomach swirl.
Autopilot takes my feet forward, following Dave to wherever Mom is. When he leads me into the room the low hum of machines makes me shiver. She looks so tiny on the bed, frail, and ghostly white.
She wouldn’t want this. She’s told me for as long as I’ve been old enough to understand that she doesn’t ever want to be kept alive by machines. Never thought it would be something I needed to enforce, or decide, but it’s not my decision to make.
I need to take it out.
Crossing the room, I grab the breathing tube entering her body. She wouldn’t want this.
Firm hands grip my arms and pull me back as I struggle to free Mom from the plastic tubing and artificial inflation making her chest rise and fall.
“You can’t pull it out, Hermano. The medical staff need to take care of her.”
It’s a subtle change in how Apollo addresses me, a shift in language from friend to brother, but I doubt it’s accidental. He’s letting me know that I’m not alone, I still have family.
It should comfort me, send warmth through the icicles taking up residence in my chest, but all I can see is the machines, my feeble Mom, and flashes of Dad’s dead body in my mind.
“Take it out. She wouldn’t want that. Take it out.” Shaking sobs make it hard to get the words out, but Dave nods.
While my friend and girlfriend settle me onto a chair, there’s a flurry of activity. They tell me it could be minutes or hours before Mom stops breathing by herself, but I know in my soul it won’t be long.
Dad’s gone, she won’t make it a long and drawn out process for me, it’ll happen fast.
I don’t know if that’s better or worse, but I do know that’s what’s going to happen.
Penelope and Apollo offer to sit with me, but once again, I send them out and stare at the woman who gave me life as she’s losing hers. This is something I need to do by myself, something I need to see through to the end, alone.
When everyone leaves, I drag my chair right up close to the bed and pick up Mom’s hand. She’s still warm. The urge to climb up next to her and sob on her chest is hard to fight, but instead, I clutch her hand between both of mine, stare at the screen, and wait.
As expected, it doesn’t take long, though for a minute there I thought she’d defy the odds and be okay.
When the machine indicates a flat line, I press the mute button on the monitor so I can have a little more time with her. But also because I’m not ready to be an orphan, or to have to make every decision for the rest of my life, alone.
If I stay here just a little longer, maybe the decisions can wait, the chaos and the red tape, the bureaucracy of probate my parents went through when Gramps died. I just can’t.
Tugging at the collar of my shirt doesn’t make it any easier to breathe. Sweat beads across my forehead and down the back of my neck, pressure building inside my body.
I need more time.
So I hold Mom’s hand, lay my head down beside her, and weep.
