Thursday

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Today is Thursday.  I’ve been back in LA for 3 days?  Yesterday was sort of the last to-do for my mom’s passing.  We asked friends and family to donate to a local charity---the Blessing House, and I arranged with them to get a copy of all the various donations so we can write thank-you notes.  I’ve been jogging a bit---wanting to sweat but then walking makes me super-sad, too.  Yesterday I slept most of the day.  This morning, I was walking Pickle and it was so sunshiney-yellow, and the flowers are so gorgeous, especially the purple trees that are showering their blossoms all over the sidewalks---and I was instantly in a good mood and thought “God damn it mom and dad for your relentless optimism.”  Then, my sister Beth called, and I was crying and she was lecturing me about getting back to work and I finally told her---“I don’t push back on you a lot but I need you to stop lecturing me about work” and she laughed and said “I’m treating you like a 5^th grader” and now I’m thinking---she lectures me more than my actual mother ever did. 

Today is Thursday, so I should sweep the floor and maybe even clean the sinks and toilet.  One of the days we were visiting my mom before she was in ICU, she confessed that she didn’t have a toilet brush and used the water from the bowl and a regular scrub brush.  Kitty, my other sister, was disgusted and I was charmed.  Very efficient Mom!  The night before, Kitty got mad because I wasn’t washing a pan with enough dish soap and we told my mom about our fight and she mostly rolled her eyes at us and pretended to go to sleep.

Today is Thursday, and it's 3 weeks ago she was tubed. That morning, Dad and Uncle Tom and Mrs. Jezewski and I were all there in the morning, and we laughed and hung out and my dad made a chart for my mom that told her how often to do the breathing apparatus and I kept making her follow the chart, and she shot me nasty looks as she forced herself to breath.  Mrs. J led a prayer and then my mom wanted to rest.

I was there alone at the hospital with her as two specialists came in with very grim faces, and she turned to me after and said “It doesn’t look good”.  I yelled at the cardiologist for restricting her food as she was eating NOTHING except stupid Ensure shakes and wanted chicken noodle soup god damn it and they had her on restricted salt and liquid so nothing appealed to her and he mumbled about getting a nutrition consult. 

I tried to find the positive, and then her oxygen levels dropped again and she wasn’t able to get any air.  Everyone started pouring in—the docs, nurses, respritatory therapists, icu crew---and prepped her for ICU and one of the nurses said “Did you call your dad?” and I had and I was crying but trying to keep in my mom’s line of sight so she could see a familiar face and hold back my tears and I thought she was going to die as she looked at me with those giant baby blues.  I actually picture that moment and she has hair—all of the versions of her hair---light brown, silvery-white, curly—and not that little baby bald bird head.  An hour later, she was tubed and we never heard her speak again and she was barely conscious but could squeeze our hands for a bit and open her eyes but was never fully there again.

And now I can’t hold back my tears and I need to sort out a loan so I can work part time for a while so I’m not crying at my desk all the time.  And clean my apartment and make some pork and write thank-you notes and water the herbs and find a grief group and now my little dog is licking my tears and rolling on the couch in her happy snoopy dance and I know this will always be awful, but it won’t always be only this.  That already, I have found joy and delight and iced coffee and binge tv watching and sleep and friends and family.  Because god damn it---that’s what my parents taught me to do!  UGH!