Ten Years
Dear Mom,
You’ve been gone for ten years.
When you look at it on paper, 10 years sounds like a long time. A decade, double-digits, a reason for a high school reunion. But when I close my eyes, ten years later, I’m immediately back in the ICU, listening to the hypnotic beeps of the monitors and the stifled sounds of the hallway, dizzy from the smell of sanitized hospital stuff and patients’ last breaths. I am instantly transported back to your bedside with my head pounding as I concentrated on your every move. I am again paralyzed with the fear of missing your last breath or the miraculous recovery I think I still held out for. I remember how badly I had to pee.
There’s really no other way to describe the night you died but to say time stopped and my world shattered. We were with you until the end, when you finally succumbed to the fight that your body could no longer take. You were brave, you were scared, and you were beautiful.
The beeping, the smells, the stifled air, it was all too much. And I really, really had to pee. I think I sat there for 18 hours, maybe more, not flinching. I don’t remember. I wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t.
You were lucid, even funny, then very confused. You talked to people who weren’t in the room and were nagged by a discomfort in your leg. Slowly your body started to shut down. Christy eventually coaxed you to where you needed to go. It took some time, as you didn’t want to leave. Truthfully, I didn’t want you to leave either and I think you knew that.
Eventually, we all told you it was ok to say good-bye. I told you to go. The words were almost impossible to form let alone say out loud. I sat motionless, watching you finally, gracefully go.
My world shattered. Time stopped.
I really had to pee.
I don’t like to think about you in that room and what it was like after you stopped breathing; after they disconnected that insufferable beeping monitor and the florescent lights that were too bright. You looked yellow, but somehow, in your true manner, still very, very beautiful.
I kissed your cold forehead and I knew you were no longer in the room. You looked peaceful. It’s absolutely true that when someone’s soul has left her body it is obvious. Yours had clearly, finally, moved on, and I felt some relief at that.
I don’t remember if I said anything more to you than: ‘I love you,’ because I’d never wanted to run away from anywhere so fast in my life. But then again I still had to pee…
In ten years so much has happened and I have written to you every day, in my mind at least. This is to make up for the fact that we used to talk on the phone every day, sometimes three, four times a day, and now nothing, silence. Since you don’t answer, I thought maybe if I started writing it down, you’d answer me in some other way. At least I can hope.
Love,
Sara
Always smiling and joking. Our last visit to the Emergency Room - 2000
Next month in July marks 11 years since my mother, Susan, passed away from cancer. I’ve held on to this post for awhile, not sure whether or when to share it due to its personal nature. Today, felt right. It basically shares one of the reasons why I’m blogging and revisits that evening in the ICU. I’ve been reading Meaghan O’Rourke’s book, The Long Goodbye lately and have found it deeply moving and cathartic. I guess this is why I decided to post this ‘letter’ now.
With love,
Sara
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