My Mother.

A few days ago my mother called me. As I was at work, I could not answer. When I left work, I listened to her voice mail. "I'm in the E.R. Call me." Instant panic took over. I even yelled out "Oh, no!" without realizing. I immediately called her. She could not have answered quickly enough. In the short walk to my car I had completely run out of breath. "Hey, are you ok?!" Her voice was soft as usual. "Yeah. My heart was acting up and I had some chest pains." On the phone, my response was "Ok." as in "You're still alive, that's good" but in my head my response was "Oh no no no, this isn't happening, I'm not ready for these kinds of things to happen."

My grandmother just passed away last year. She was my mother's mother so naturally they looked very much alike. Almost identical. My mother and I are nearly night and day if it weren't for our eyes. Watching my grandmother deteriorate very quickly was upsetting on it's own. However, what I couldn't seem to look past was the thought "What will I do when this happens to Mom?" And then, in this moment on the phone, there was a flash of this thought again. In that moment I thought of Mom's several thousands of personal items, the welfare of my teenage brother and sister, my own mortality, and mostly hers. I sat in my car, freezing because I hadn't thought to put the key in the ignition yet. And I had also kept my eyes shut while she was speaking. It was almost as if I was hoping it was a nightmare.

She was waiting on test results. They couldn't be sure of what was causing her troubles without lots and lots of tests, of course. She said she would call me back as soon as they gave her an answer. I went back into the store and sat in the break room, having a stupid amount of trouble trying to keep my hands still. I kept my phone on me and waited for her to call back. When she did I was at the top of a latter and nearly fell off because I knew it was her. "All I can say is that my life is pretty plain...." I answer the phone. She explained that it wasn't a heart attack. Huge waves of relief wash over me briefly. It turns out the problem is ulcers. Ulcers in her stomach and esophagus are affecting her right heart valve and keeping it from working like it should and the feeling is very similar to a heart attack. They hope that with acid reflux medication this problem will fade.

This situation reminds me of a couple of years ago when my dad told me he was going to have a large chunk of his lip cut out due to sun damage and cancer. Although both diagnoses sounded scary and life-threatening in the beginning and both turned out to be relatively harmless and mild, they both made me panic and face the thoughts I had been trying to escape. No one wants to watch their parents die. Neither of my parents have lead healthy lives. They both have their fair share of problems. I don't want to lose them. I don't want my kids to lose them. I don't want to handle things when they're gone. Who will I turn to? And what will the days leading up to the end be like?