My life was going pretty well after I graduated high school. I enrolled in college, was spending more time with my family and was engaged! Then out of the blue my world went into a tailspin as my Mom sat me down and explained to me that she was sick. My mom...who never gets sick beyond a cold, was having to tell me that she was seriously ill.
In a very short time, my Mom went from being the Mom who drives me everywhere, listens to my drama, cooks and cleans for me and makes life normal, to being my Mom who was bedridden. Period. She still smiled that gorgeous smile with those cute dimples that I naturally inherited from her (Thanks, Mom!), she still laughed and giggled in that feminine way she always did...she even looked the same...just not the same, at the same time, because now, she was sick.
I remember everything going from that simple conversation in the beginning with my Mom, where I laughed her illness off as, 'Oh, Mom, you'll be fine' to my brother waking me up in the waiting room and saying, 'Melissa, the nurse wants to see you' in almost an instant. Why the nurse? Why didn't my brother tell me the doctor wanted to see me, because in reality, that would be who would declare to the world that my Mom was no longer...here.
I remember walking in that room, everyone already having been told...and seeing my Father, at my Mother's side...my Mother looking so incredibly peaceful. I don't recall crying...just realizing that my Mom, once again, had been right...she had been incredibly ill and no, she probably wasn't going to recover.
It was actually several months prior to this that my Mom battled Aplastic Anemia. Several months that my Father sat at her side, wanting answers to questions that no one had answers to, because at the time, Aplastic Anemia was a rare disease to have. During those months, my Father, my Family and myself, would travel back and forth to UCLA Medical Center and then back home to Fresno Community 'visiting' my Mom. I always thought it was temporary...always.
It was at Fresno Community shortly before she passed away, that I was able to have one night alone with my Mom. A final night where she was laughing with me, talking with me and telling me everything that she wanted and needed me to know. There were times in during our conversations that I wouldn't take what she was saying seriously and she would be insistant that I listen. That entire night, I had no idea that it would be our last, but I have a feeling that she did. The next morning she would awake in incredible pain...and the nightmare that would end it all, began.
My Mom has been gone for what seems like ages now. I try not to remember the day, I don't care about the day. I just know that that particular day has made me almost hate every holiday that is on the calendar...today especially. Today, being Mother's Day.
There is one memory, one moment that I hold onto, even now as I think back on that time...a moment that seems to get me through days like this...days where I should just enjoy what I have, but for awhile, I just can't seem to get past it. The moment I'm referring to is a moment only my Mother and I shared after she had gone into a coma...
I remember two of my sisters being in the room with me and my Mom, and as I stood next to her bed, I kept remembering my mind asking God, over and over, 'If you're going to take her, at least let me hear her tell me that she loves me one last time'. I begged that, in my head like I've never begged for anything else before or since in my life. I don't know if it really happened, or if I imagined it since my sisters seemed unmoved as they were deep in conversation on the other side of her bed...but my Mom turned to me, opened her eyes and said, simply, 'I love you' and then closed her eyes...that was the last time I heard her voice or saw her awake.
So, now that I've had my moment to reflect, to feel what I try to avoid each holiday...I will now, go on with my day, spend time with my Family, (as my own children are waking up) and be thankful for the woman who made this incredible life of mine possible, just because she became...My Mom.
