Rendezvous
06 October 08 : 05.55 PM
There's something extraordinarily and inexplicably saddening about seeing your mother wheeled. She was sleeping when she returned to her room in the ward, half-awake sorta because the anaesthesia hasn't worn off completely yet. The cotton gauze that extended from her neck up to her ear was soaked scarlet. An unintended burst of color on an otherwise pale face. I didn't think that anything could make me sadder at that moment, until she broke into a smile. It just crashed me somehow.
My mom can be such a strong woman sometimes. In her state of pain and unconsciousness, she was asking questions like, Did Vicki go to school? Who went to pick Ann up from school? Has Laurel eaten? Did Wilson go to work? Every time we told her not to speak anymore, she would keep quiet for a minute or two, fall asleep perhaps, and then wake up to ask questions like those again.
Thank god the tumour was benign. Her oncologist has told me that if it's not, it would mean that my mom's cancer is in its 3rd stage. One stage short of the final stage, which would be excruciating for everyone. The other day when I was going out to buy Helme's gift and it was late, she offered to drive me. "What would you do without me?" she asked jokingly. I told her "I couldn't do anything without you." She laughed and said to me, "Then you had better learn. I'm gonna be gone soon." And in the most obstinate way possible, I told her, no you're going to live forever. I don't ever want to be unsure of that.