where i was on monday

my mother is ill.

well, she's always ill. the nurse was doing her best to offer comfort by suggesting happily that instead of being bummed about having to sit around bored in the hospital all day, she could get some things done. you know, all the things you want to get done by all that life gets in the way? this would have been a happy thought except my mother's been having health problems for so long now that all those projects have been completed and what she really wants to do is her own laundry. i pointed this out. i think now the nurse thinks i am a bad daughter.

i'm not. i'm a speaking the truth kind of daughter.

so she's ill. and this time, it's more than the normal. you'd think that the other times i'd been in the hospital room and watched them insert her IV, or changed her bandages or watched them test her blood sugar i'd be used to it all. but today, i felt ill myself. i wanted a hospital bed of my own to sort of lie down in and pull the covers over my head.

"wake me up when she's able to go home." i wanted to say.

instead i watched the ct scan (something i learned: ct scan and cat scan are the same thing) where the machine ordered my mother to breathe and then not to breathe and then to breathe again. they had me sit in a corner and had my mother lift her arms over her head.

i cried.

i'm not sure why. except this: my mother means so much to me. did you know she has the same sense of humor as me? and we think alike. one time my mother, my father and i were in the kitchen talking and making food. my mother said something semi-snide and my father swatted me with a wooden spoon.

"what was that for?" i asked, surprised.

"you shouldn't say such things." he scolded.

i laughed. "that was your wife, not me!"

unfairly, he did not then turn and swat my mother with the wooden spoon. lesson: it pays to sleep with the boss.

no one looked at me when i cried. i was grateful, because i knew the second someone acknowledged my tears was the second i fell apart, right there in the ct/cat scan room, where the technician was teasing my mother about the cocktail she had to drink beforehand (do not let the name "cocktail" confuse you about the quality of this drink. i smelled it and it was foul).

"there's some more available in the gift shop!" he said.

but as i sat there in my corner all by myself, feeling very young as i used the sleeves of my sweatshirt to swipe my eyes, i felt so alone.

i really love my mom. when things like this happen, i remember that she's mortal. the very thought is a trial. i would be so lost without her, i love her so very, very much.

i am surprised that when things are more difficult, when more is on the line, my faith is so small.

an for all of those who would ask, she broke her foot about three weeks ago but because of her diabetes she couldn't really feel it and continued to walk on it. this led to infection and swelling, which started off in her foot and ended up in her abdomen. that's when my mom went to the emergency room. she is anemic (terribly anemic), diabetic, has low blood pressure (very low blood pressure), has a low supply of blood, has a great deal of infection and has a thing in her heart to keep it from skipping beats and then racing.

my dad likes to say that her body is the equivalent to the elite republican guard and his body is the equivalent to the marine corps. then we laugh.