Hummingbird Tattoo

In The Hospital

Being in the hospital with a victim is very different than with my parents. I usually don't arrive until after the patient has been admitted, when called by hospital staff or law enforcement. There's no mystery, even if what happened is unclear, because all I need to go on is that the victim believes they experienced a sexual assault. Anything mysterious or unclear is the responsibility of law enforcement or medical staff. I usually have to make a stand on at least one issue with medical staff on behalf of the victim. Take your pick: reporting vs. non reporting, HIV risk and prophylaxis, discharge from the ER. And once the call is done, I leave, go home and rest. I try to follow up, but sometimes the victim only sees me as a reminder of the assault. I know I did the best and most that I could. I sleep at night.

I spent more time with my dad in the hospital than I did with my mom. We waited to find out what was going on, what symptoms were cancer, or treatment side effects, or just the hazards of living. Medical staff are more deferential to cancer than rape. 

But ultimately you go to the hospital for things that were done to you (unless it's a "Darwin Awards"-style accident). I can now joke that my one personal trip to the ER was for a rogue appendix, but at the time I definitely cursed my body for what it was doing to me. Rape is a betrayal of trust (you are more likely to be assaulted by someone you know). 

I realized, on my most recent work trip to the hospital, that cancer is a betrayal of trust too. It was the stupid hospital socks that got me thinking, about feet in beds and the grips on the bottoms of those socks in case you get up. Cancer betrays without the malice of the rapist, but  forever mars the ability to hope or trust the body's cells. Your body makes cells, using energy, for the purpose of maintaining the body's life. And when that cell is done it should have the good sense to die, to make way for new cells for the good of the body. But cancer cells refuse to die, and then they populate.

Then doctors treat the cancer. They talk in terms of numbers, of years left and percentages in studies and lab test results. My mom's doctors have her amazing news in May and she died in August. I can't decide if I wish I was never told that May news, because I'm so far from the hope they gave me. Cancer and its medicine yanked my hope like a rubber band. And at some point it snaps.

The Exhaustion of Never

These are some of the things I will never do with my mom again:

Wake up on a Saturday morning knowing she's there to have breakfast with Stanley and take him to the park.

Marvel at her Goodwill/garage sale/consignment sale finds.

Ask her about my childhood.

Call her for the answer to some question about my childhood or parenting.

Worry about her, how she's feeling, whether she's telling me everything or trying not to worry me.

Pick out some books from my shelves to recommend to her.

Call her about my day, or to wish her good morning, or set up a video call with the kids. 

Giver her a birthday present or receive the perfect one from her.

Take Stanley to a coffee shop.

I'm exhausted thinking about all the things I'll never do again with her. Sometimes, looking forward towards a future without her, I don't know if I can do this. I'll never struggle through a week towards the joy of her arrival on a Friday night with the promise of a weekend of fun. I just want to lay my head down and wake up when it's not so hard.

Secret Message

I yearn so much to hear from my mother, even one last time. I actually do hear her in the laughter of my children, in birdsong, in my grandmother's voice...but I fantasize about her leaving one last message, just for me, with the wisdom of the dying. I wanted some secret transmission directly to my eyes and ears on my birthday, the first without her.
One of those last days, at her house, she did murmur that she wanted to tell me something. But she didn't finish the thought. Or maybe she did, and I didn't recognize it. 
I've dreamed two dreams over the past week about a message from her. In one, she was dying, and I asked her to call my phone and leave me a message for later. This was probably the night after I did listen to the last voicemail she left me, telling me how she was feeling but that there was nothing to be worried about. In the second dream, the book I ordered with my birthday checks - The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, hardcover - came with an inscription from her, rambling about dying wishes and practical arrangements with tenderness. 
I almost - almost - expected a birthday card from her. Not mailed from beyond, but signed and delivered by advance arrangement. And when it never came I realized that (of course!) if she had planned not to be here, she would have found a way to make sure I got a card from her on my birthday. But all the things she didn't do - birthday card, final arrangements, updating her will, writing down her email password, for goodness' sake - meant that she never planned not to be here. Dying wasn't in her plan. All the things she did in the last few months were rooted in the intentions of living. She didn't waste a precious second on death.
That is what these acts and omissions mean to me. My mind has put them all together in this pattern. But my heart isn't there yet...my heart breaks on a Sunday morning, on a three day weekend, screaming inside how will we fill these hours without her? These days? These long years ahead without my mother's touch? My heart quails at the long years of motherhood, of life, that I have to walk without her. That would feel less lost without some words to guide them by.