Like any other day

“I wanted to give you an update on mom. Alex and I went to see her yesterday.”

“Yeah, how is she?” My sister is eager for the news.

“Well, it’s bad, I think. She’s got nothing on that left side, although she can feel everything. They don’t know yet if the bleeding has stopped and her blood pressure is still high.”

“Will they still have to do surgery?”

“Not as far as we know.”

A few moments of silence.

“Tom asked me if I wanted to fly out…”, Anne’s voice trails off and I realize it is a question for me.

“No, don’t do that. There isn’t anything you can do here. She’s so groggy she really couldn’t visit and with the kids…”

“If you wanted me to come…”

“No, really, it’s okay.”

A pause. I hear Anne take a breath. “So, how are you?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m fine but…When Alex called to tell me they were flying her to St. Bernadette’s I didn’t really have any reaction. I keep thinking I should…”
“I know. Tom can’t understand why I’m not on a plane already. He said if it was his mom…and I said ‘exactly’”.

“Is he upset with you?”

“No. He just says he can’t understand it but he’ll support me in whatever I want to do.”

“Well, I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“If you want me to come…”

“No, really. I’ll tell you if she asks for you but right now you’d just be watching her sleep.”

“Okay.”

I hung up the phone and booted up my computer. Time to go to work. It’s just like any other day for you, isn’t it?

I compose a brief note for my friends, asking for prayers for my mother and hit send.

Feels like any other day.


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Memory Lane

I make the long journey home driving into the night down a highway that has carried me in and out of every significant chapter of my life. “Oh, it’s you again, girl. It’s been a while.”

“It has, indeed.”

“Care for a little reminiscing?”

“Not particularly. But I suppose that was a rhetorical question now, wasn’t it?”

And I can hear the road reply, “They don’t call it Memory Lane for nothing.”

Seventeen years gone by and somehow I still know every subtle curve of the road. Seventeen years gone by.

The scenes of the day flit across my mind’s eye, superimposing themselves on distant memories now stirring from their slumber. The smells, the sounds, the language of the hospital at once anchor and disorient me. I know this place. I just don’t know who I am within it. Steve Masters. I exhale and shake my head. How can it be that I am here again?

“Souls travel together.” I hear my mother’s voice in my head as my eyes turn to the moon, full and bright ahead of me. Oh, how much that moon has seen.

“So, this is part of our karma, that you should be in this hospital? That you should make me come back here to play this out with you?”

I don’t hear a reply.


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Like Wood

As we enter the Critical Care Unit, the night clerk looks up with a gentle smile that is a curious blend of welcome, sympathy and social habit. I offer back a half smile of thanks but it doesn’t feel any more genuine than I imagine hers to be. She has already returned to her charts. Most of the visitors have left for the evening and the floor is quiet save for the rhythmic beep of monitors, gentle hiss of oxygen and periodic decompressions of ventilators marking our way down the corridor. Mom’s room is at the end of the hall, adjacent to the nurses’ station. The “room” is actually a cubicle, solid on 3 sides with a glass partition facing the hall so the critical care nurses could easily look in on her. We step through the open sliding glass door to find her resting in that peculiar half slumber known only to hospital patients and I know that much of what is happening to her now will only be recalled as a disjointed dream in the weeks ahead.

“Mom?” I lean down slightly and whisper, debating whether I should just let her rest. The monitor above beeps out her heartbeat in a steady rhythm but the blood pressures are still high. I remind myself that she isn’t out of the woods yet. My eyes scan the tangle of iv tubes and monitor cords, before coming to rest on the deep yellow urine that is pooling in her catheter bag. No, we are not out of the woods.

“Oh, hi. How was dinner?” Mom’s voice is weak and raspy. Her lips are dry and caked with thick saliva and it is clear that the nurses never did get around to offering the oral hygiene that Suzie had promised. I force myself to stay close to her as we talk, trying to hold my breath. Anger gives way to horror as I realize that everything about this situation repulses me. Every part of me wants this not to be happening. And I am ashamed to realize that, in that moment, what I most want is for this not to be happening to me.

“You know”, Mom's eyes are closed and I am uncertain whether she is speaking to us or just to herself, “I’m glad this happened. Now I really understand what my father was going through. But I’m not scared or anything. I know it’s all going to work out just fine.” A small smile flits across her face. “It’s going to be fine.”

As she drifts back to sleep I will myself to lean in close against the sourness of her breath and kiss her forehead as we prepare to go. Almost as an afterthought, I touch her shoulder. My hand feels like wood.

Alex and I leave. I don’t remind the nurse that my mother just wants to brush her teeth.

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Just a Typical Day at the Office

California rolls long since devoured, we lingered over tea and fortune cookies, watching the blue sky give way to dusk, neither of us feeling any particular urge to return to the hospital. Consciously reminding myself that this trip was not just an excuse to have dinner with my brother, I take the lead, “Well, we should think about getting back. She’s probably going to wonder where we are.”

“Yep. Head ‘em up.” Alex delivers my father’s famous line. Funny how that happens, the way our language gets shaped by our parents’ tongues. The thought, we both have his nose, flickers across my mind.

Finally, I can’t avoid it any longer. The reality is this is not a dinner date with my brother. Last night mom suffered a stroke.

This wasn’t a warning shot. This is it. She’s lying in a hospital bed and she can’t swallow applesauce without choking and they still don’t know if the bleeding has stopped and I’m eating sushi. What exactly is wrong with this picture?!

“So, how are you with this? I mean…” Focusing on the road ahead, I struggle to find the question I want to ask Alex, hoping his answer will help me make sense of what I am most certainly not feeling right now.

He shrugs, “You know, I’m really not feeling much of anything to tell you the truth. I deal with trauma every single day. You just get used to it after a while. It’s another day at the office for me.”

“But she’s our mother.”

“Yeah, go figure.”

I don’t say anything, focusing on the road ahead, lips pursed.

Alex senses the change in my mood. “So, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that she may never be able to go home. The problem is that we’re the only local kids and I’m the oldest daughter and she’s going to need help. The problem is that I’m supposed to care. Right? I mean I’m supposed to care a lot more than I do. But I don’t. I can’t find it anywhere in me.”

“Maybe it’s just different with daughters. Or maybe it’s because you’ve always been harder on yourself than I have with this kind of thing. I know it sounds cruel but she’s made her own bed here and we all saw it coming. I’ll do what’s required of me but you can’t feel what you don’t feel. That’s a fool’s errand if you ask me.”

She absolutely did this to herself, he’s right. How many conversations did we have about this very thing? I can just walk away. Let her be a ward of the State. That’s what those programs are for.

I feel my jaw tighten. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’ll just do what I have to do and that’s it. I’m not going to worry about it.”

And what the hell does that mean, “do what I have to do?” WHAT do I have to do? He makes it look so easy.

So there we were, just the two of us and our one-armed monkey driving into the sunset. Slightly anti-social, more than slightly cynical, self-raised and we just didn’t give a fuck. It isn’t that we were bad kids or bad adults for that matter. In fact, we both devoted ourselves to serving others. Even in our cynicism we knew how to laugh, and we did so heartily and often. We knew how to be loyal and loving but in the end we expected the world to shrug us off.

We knew it wouldn’t be anything personal. That’s just how the world does.

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Exotic Foods and the One Armed Monkey

It’s early for dinner and the restaurant is empty, save for the young daughter of the owner who respectfully puts away the tiny violin she has been playing and scurries to the kitchen to alert her mother that customers have arrived. She seats herself at a table a respectful distance from us and begins to color quietly. Red paper placemats festooned with the Chinese horoscope for Westerners are laid out before us as we peruse the menu. Pretty standard fare, hamachi, unagi, California rolls…

“Working man’s sushi,” Alex nods to himself with pursed lips, considering his options.

“Is this okay? I’m not sure if we have any other sushi options in town.”

“Then it’s perfect!”

We make our selections and watch the little girl absorbed in her coloring book for a few moments. Alex snorts a half chuckle before turning to me, “So what’s was up with the Blessed Virgin story?”

“Oh, that’s old hat. I’ve got that one memorized, but just country?! What? Was she out in the back forty threshing wheat on the Southside? Milking cows and picking eggs? What WAS that?!”

Alex laughs and shrugs while making room for the waitress to place our sushi before us.

I refill our tea cups, “She never stopped being The One Who Crowned the Blessed Virgin. I think she half expected that chaplain to say ‘That was YOU?!’ He was so smooth, I'm almost surprised he didn't. She has this whole separate reality that just mystifies me.”

Alex shakes his head and spears a piece of hamachi. “Yeah, I really nailed it with that eccentric heiress, “Little Butterfly” bit, didn’t I? Who knew?”

“I know! Tthose are the last pictures we took of her. It’s freaking poetic in a creepy kind of way.”

Alex pops the hamachi in his mouth, relishing it.

“I wish Rosalie liked this stuff. She’s just not that adventurous although she is getting better. When we got married she didn’t even like beans! She’s Mexican! Me, I like everything. The more exotic the better. Monkey brains? Sure, I’ll take some of that.”

“Yeah, from a one armed monkey.”

Alex is off and running again, in a bad mixed Asian accent, “Oh, you no want that monkey. That monkey baaadd. Part of medical experiment. That monkey angry all the time. Maybe bad karma.”

Then, realizing the full symbiotic potential, “That monkey crazy, all day long stares at large balloon. Maybe like he sees what no one else can see. Crazy. Like to wear feather boa. No, you no want to eat that monkey’s brains.”

For the 99th time, I found myself being thankful he is there with me. A little inappropriately dark humor at our stricken mother’s expense and politically incorrect bad Asian accent aside, it was the closest thing to normal I could find.


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Glide on, Little Butterfly

**********

The last time I saw my mother, I took her picture. That was just nine days ago. As I take the keys from the ignition and reach to open my door the realization floods my mind. Those are the last pictures of my mother. Maybe they will be the last pictures anyone will ever take of her, although right now that thought is a little melodramatic. Mellow dramatic. Like smooth jazz. Sounds so hip. Yes, just add some Euro-Lounge Chill Out music and that will make things just perfect.

We had been celebrating Natalie's fourth birthday. Alex and Rosalie wanted a Halloween theme and requested that we all come in costume. Being married to a former college theatre major made this no problem for me as any opportunity to dress up was grabbed with gusto by my beloved. All morning I had watched Scotty assemble our pirate costumes, with painstaking attention to detail. Our closet was raided for all the necessary accoutrements...jewels, swords, guns, powder horns, scarves, shredded swashbuckler blouson top. Then came the makeup application. Bloody gash across the eye for him, beauty mark for me, his pirate gypsy wench. Next came the skull and crossbones tattoo expertly applied with Sharpie marker on his chest. I did put my foot down when I saw my facial-hair impaired partner lift the Sharpie to his upper lip. "That's a permanent marker!" I cried in a panic, deftly switching the pen for an eyebrow pencil with the eye roll and sigh perfected by many a wife.

As we prepared to leave for Alex's, Scotty, with excellent foresight rushed back into the house to pack a few costume pieces for my parents. Cowboy hat, vest, bandana and pocket watch for Dad. Mom would be given a lovely black hat and burgundy feather boa. Scotty and I were the only adults to arrive in costume that day. Even Alex and Rosalie opted to remain costumeless.

I stared, dumbfounded, at Alex when he answered the door.

"I didn't think anyone would actually do it," Alex shrugged.

"Helloooo! I'm married to Costume Boy! You are so lame," I step past him to lift Natalie and spin her about while delivering the eye roll perfected by many a big sister.

Long since immune to my reproaches, Alex handed Scotty a paper plate and pointed to the fried chicken and mostaccoli platters (the prefered birthday food of pirates everywhere) and returned to his less flamboyant guests.

While I continued to work on my "slightly miffed pirate wench" look, Scotty grabbed the costume bag and set to work on my parents, who willingly complied with his efforts to transform them. Dad immediately launched in to John Wayne impressions while mom just giggled and rolled her eyes in the manner perfected by every mother-in-law in mock protest of her son-in-laws antics.

I sat next to Alex with my plate and watched them. It was unusual to have both parents together since their divorce 15 years ago but they actually seemed comfortable right now. From a certain angle it almost looked like they were enjoying each other. I couldn't help but smile as I took a bite from my plate.

"Mmm. Mom's potato salad is excellent! Did you try it?"

Alex agreed. "I think this might even be better than Dad's."

"Hey, next year you should tell them both to bring it and not warn them. We'll have a German potato salad competition and everyone will vote."

Recalling the endless debates between them on who was the better cook, Alex cracked up. "That would be perfect!"

"Hey, I meant to ask you, do you know Sam? I saw you had responded to his comment at my blog. He went to school with me."

"Really? Remind me. I'm not sure if I remember him."

Just then my mother walked up to join us. “We’re talking about Sam Martin, Mom.”

“Oh! How is he?”

“Doing well. He and Alex recently met through my blog but Alex didn’t realize we went to school together. Sam had put up a comment about his work at the…”

I stop and watch my mother turn and drift away while I was in mid sentence, trailing her boa behind her. I watch her in amazement.

Alex chuckles, “She’s like an eccentric heiress. She hasn’t got the money, but she’s got everything else." Then in a whimsical, pseudo British accent his eyes follow her path, "Glide on, Little Butterfly. Glide on.” He sweeps his hand waving her on her way.

"Daddy, it's time for cake!" Natalie interrupts us.

"That means it time for pictures, too!" I run off to fetch my camera as Rosalie places the candles.

I don't know when the roles changed but somewhere along the line I became to family archivist. That had been my father's role for many years as he was rarely without his camera. Now it was my turn to document our rites of passage. Of course, I thought Natalie's birthday was the event of the day.

Later that evening, unable to get the Little Butterfly character out of our minds, Alex and I handed Mom a balloon and instructed her to gaze dreamily into the distance, as though she is able to see something that no one else can see. Pose after pose, out mother allowed us to develop her character and mock her with all the abandon of wicked children realizing they are now too big to be spanked or grounded. She was powerless in the face of our mirth and allowed herself to be our plaything of the moment, laughing all the while.

The pictures were charming and some of my favorites of her.


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“This could get a little interesting.”

Suzie turns to Alex and me and begins to explain the screening she has just completed and Mom's likely progression from Cardiac Care to the Rehabilitation unit. I nod, “I understand. I have a background in rehab and actually did my first traineeship here many years ago when you had about half the hospital that you do now. This place looks great!” I sweep my arm toward the new wing visible through the hospital window.

“Oh! Then you know all this! Great. I’ve been here about 5 years so it’s always looked this way to me,” she nods, her gaze following my arm.

“Are Dr. Fitzpatrick and Dr. Angotti still here?”

“I’m on Dr. Fitzpatrick’s team,” Suzie beams at me. “. Dr. Angotti has a private practice but he still consults here.”

“I worked with them both when I was here. They’re great! In fact, the whole team I worked with was great.”

"They are, indeed. I've got some great mentors here. People tend to stay here for a long time. Angela Sims in Occupational Therapy has been here for nearly 20 years. Tony Andrews in P. T. has been here over ten."

"Angela is still here?!"

"Sure is. We're both on Dr. Fitzpatrick's team."

Considering Suzie was assigned to do Mom's bedside evaluation, I wonder if this means Mom has already been assigned to her rehab team. “Will Dr. Fitzpatrick be my mother’s physician when she is transferred to rehab?”

“I’m not sure. We also have Dr. Wong and Dr. Masters.” She furrows her brow, considering, “I suppose you could request a certain doctor”, she trails off ending the comment with a question in her voice, unsure whether that would be considered an appropriate request.

"Dr. Masters. Steve Masters?"

"One and the same. Do you know him?"

"He was on his residency during my training here. I didn't realize he had stayed on staff afterwards."

“He’s a great doc. Who knows? We haven't made the team assignment for your mom yet, so it's possible he may take over her care. We’ll see when she’s ready for that.”

Suzie smiles, agrees and rips off a piece of paper one which she pens her name and number. “Call any time you have questions.”

“Thanks, Suzie,” I fold the paper and place it in my front jeans pocket.

She leaves and I return to my mother’s side.

“Do you remember that name, Ma? Steve Masters?”

My mother looks at me fuzzily, a slight shake of her head.

“Think back” I peer into her eyes. “This is a cognitive test.”

She looks up, searching her memory, then a dim light seems to emerge. Looking back at me she whispers, “The amputee?”

I nod.

She leans back into her pillow, nodding slightly with a half smile that would have been a half smile even without the droop of her face. “Small world.”

She is tired now and we haven’t eaten since breakfast.

“Ma, we’re going to let you get some rest and go get some dinner. We’ll be back in a bit.”

She nods, eyes closed, already drifting off.

Alex and I make our way down the brightly lit hall of the new-to-me hospital wing. “They have any sushi in this town?”

Alex has a chronic, serious sushi jones. His wife, Rosalie is decidedly not a fan of raw fish so any outing with me is relished as an opportunity to for him to satisfy this guilty pleasure.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this town. “I think so. Hmm. I’m trying to remember where it is. We’ll head north.” I’m feeling a little distracted.

As we head out of the main entrance toward the parking lot, I decide I need to get this over with.

“This could get a little interesting.”

Alex gives me a sideways glance, shifting slightly into cop interrogation mode.

“How so?”

Squirming a bit, I start to crack up. How perfect. I mean what are the odds?

“Weeeelllll, Dr. Masters and I had...um...a…well...a relationship.”

Slowly the light dawns. “Ah, I thought they were unusually friendly here!”

Needing no more encouragement from me, Alex has all he needs. In his best lounge guy voice he croons at me, “Well, helllooo. Nice to see you again.”

“No!” I smack him in the arm. “He wasn’t like THAT!” I protest, desperately trying to figure out how I was going to maintain any shred of dignity now that I had exposed myself as such prime material for my brother’s next act.

Chuckling to himself and shrugging, he goes on, “You know, I know you had some indiscretions in your first marriage. I don’t really have any opinion on that, but I gotta say, I don’t really think of you as a sexual person,” he holds his hands in front of him, palms out as though subconsciously trying to push away any further images that may have crept in.

“You don’t?!” I huff, a little offended. I mean, sure, I’m 43 and all, but should the thought be that foreign? That alien?

“I mean, you’re my sister.” He shudders with an exaggerated wince.

I concede the point and have to admit it’s probably better that way.

“An amputee, huh?”

Shit. Here we go. I knew I wasn’t going to escape that easy.

“So you like to get all freaky, don’t you? Now, let’s see. There was Bobby Smith. That was your jungle fever phase. And an amputee. Any midgets?”

I can’t help it. I don’t want to encourage him but I have to laugh.

“No. But there was a Christian Scientist.”

Alex loses it. He’s dying. “Oh, that’s PERFECT!”

We’re both laughing hard now and again, I realize how grateful I am to have him with me.

“There it is!” I pull in to the parking lot of Sushi Palace.
Alex is delighted.

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Hearty Greek Stock

Mom's reverie is short-lived as moments later, the speech therapist enters the room to perform a bedside swallowing evaluation and a quick orientation check.

“I’m Suzie. I’m here to check how well you can swallow now so we can see if we can start to give you some food yet. Would you like that?”

Mom nods. “I’m really thirsty. I’m not hungry but I would love to brush my teeth. I hadn’t really been prepared to come to the hospital.”

“Okay, we can get the nurse to give you some oral hygiene. Can you tell me where you are?”

St. Bernadette's Hospital. Mom gives the correct response.

“That’s right. And the day?”

She takes a few seconds to consider. “I think it’s Thursday.”

“That’s right. Good! Let’s try you with some water now.”

Suzie dips a small plastic spoon into the Styrofoam cup of water, spilling a bit on my mother’s left arm.

“Oops! Sorry. Now open up.”

Mom takes the water in and closes her eyes, swallowing.

“Now say ‘aaahhhh’”.

“Aahh”. She can’t hold the tone, but what does come out is clear, with no gurgling. A good sign. Gurgling would have indicated that the water had been “aspirated” (gone down the wrong way) or not been cleared completely, placing her at risk for pneumonia.

A few more spoons, followed by a few more “ahs” then sipping with a straw. So far so good.

“Let’s try some apple sauce. Maybe even a cracker.”

This time she doesn’t do as well. The good news is that she can feel the apple sauce at the back of her throat and is able to clear it with water. But this time she is gurgley.

“Gus and I are going to be right at the same spot.” She smiles at Suzie, with a shimmer of pride in her eyes. “He’s my grandson. They are just starting him on solid food.”

Still considering the apple sauce she continues, “I made apple kuchen yesterday. My sister gave my some apples so I made apple kuchen. It’s a type of apple cake. It’s really good. Yesterday I had it for breakfast and again for lunch. That’s all I ate, along with a pot of coffee.”

That’s just fucking terrific, Ma. Thank God that diabetes went away.

Alex must have read my mind. “Great diet, Ma! Just add a pack of Red Man Tobacco and you’ve got a perfectly balanced meal.”

She laughs, “Hey, knock it off. What can I say, I’m just country.”

Whaaaaa?! You were raised in Chicago!

Turning again to Suzie, the inevitable announcement is made. “Good strong country Greek stock. That’s why I’m still here. That strong Greek blood.”

Oh, dear God, here we go. Mother will you get a clue here?!?! Having a debilitating stroke at 63 is NOT a testament to genetic superiority! This is your life we are talking about and it looks pretty fucked up right now from where I’m standing. You are not auditioning for the lead in My Big Fat Greek Stroke.

She doesn’t get to progress to the cracker.

“I’m going to have them do a full evaluation with you so that they can see what’s happening to the food when you try to swallow. Sometimes you can have the food go down wrong and not even realize it, so we want to make sure everything is okay. We don’t want you getting pneumonia!”

Mom agrees and looks grateful that they are concerned and making sure everything is all right. She’s expresses genuine appreciation readily with all the staff. This is definitely one point on her side and she is going to need every point she can get. This natural skill may be more valuable to her in the future than she realizes.


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