Six Years Later, I Can Finally Smile Again

Six years ago, my mom passed away. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, since she had been disappearing into her illness for over a decade. But it was still a shock when I received the call. My greatest fear finally materialized.

Every year since then, I post something sad about missing her. It’s still true. I still have moments where the pain knocks me to my knees. And while time hasn’t healed all wounds for me, it has offered the gift of distance and clarity. I am grateful that I can look back on memories of her and smile.

One memory in particular made me smile this year. I was close to my son’s age, maybe six or seven years old. My mother, the brave soul, took my toddler sister and me to India without my father, who kept working.

I barely go shopping for one hour and keep it together with my two kids, so I can only imagine the horrors of managing two little kids, plus enough luggage for two months, in the airports and plane bathroom for what feels like a two-day flight. By the time we reached my grandmother’s house, my mother must have reached the limits of her large reservoir of patience.

The day after we arrived in the middle of the night, I remember her sitting in the foyer, with a tired smile plastered across  her face.  She spoke with the flood of guests who “dropped in” to see my grandmother’s “American” daughter. And of course, like any other little kid, I kept interrupting her conversations because I needed my mother’s attention RIGHT NOW.

She lost her shit. My poor mother, who was always kind and patient, grabbed the colorful folds of her sari, jumped up from her chair, and chased me through my grandmother’s house in sandals. I was shocked, but amused. I had the same arrogance as my 6-year old son. “Mom will never catch me. I’m too fast.” So I sprinted down the long hall and she followed me. I ran by the kitchen. So did she. I ran through the dining room. So did she. I ran into our guest bedroom. So did she. I thought I would lose her by running across the bed. So imagine my surprise when she jumped on the bed and kept coming after me. I scurried out the door, into the yard, where I left my mother. I can still picture her, standing in the doorway, holding up her fist and shaking it at me, telling me what she’d do if she caught me interrupting her with a guest again. I hid from her for the rest of the day.

And so today, I’m smiling. For the first time since she died, on the anniversary of her passing, I’m finally smiling when I think of her. I love you, Mom. Thank you for the gift of that memory.

When Life Knocks You Down, You Will Find The Strength To Go On

In and out.  In and out.  Gasping.  Rasping.  In and out.  The sound of my mother’s breathing broke the silence of the hospital room.  I shivered and pulled the chair closer to her bed.  Her room was always freezing.  I understood the reason.  Cold keeps the germs at bay.  But it was already difficult to sleep through the night in her room.

She was awake.  I knew it without even looking at her.  Her breathing changed.  That rough, rhythmic pattern was replaced by wet gurgling.  With mixed feelings, I paged the ICU nurse.  Someone entered the room, took one look at my mother struggling for air, and briskly slipped on a pair of gloves.  “Okay, I’m going to suction you,” the nurse said calmly, and adjusted the dials on the tubes that traveled down my mother’s trachea.

I cringed as my mother turned her gaze to me.  Her brown eyes welled up with tears as she gagged.  I held my mother’s hand and looked away through my own tears.  I hated this.  Watching her get suctioned felt like a punch in the stomach.  I felt like retching myself.  I hated feeling so God damn helpless.  There was nothing I could do to ease my mother’s pain.  All I could do was sit beside her and hold her hand as the nurse vacuumed the thick mucus that was slowly suffocating the life out of her.  It was just part of life on the ventilator.

After the nurse finished, my mother’s breathing returned to its former rhythm.  In and out.  In and out.  Gasping.  Rasping.  In and out.  Both of us knew that it would only be a matter of time before the mucus accumulated and I would have to call the nurse.  Again.  But until then, we tried to get some rest.

I’m not sure how she did it, but my mother actually fell back to sleep.  Maybe it was a side effect from her medications.  And there were plenty of them.  I created a spreadsheet to track all of them.  Actually, I created color-coded spreadsheets to track everything about her case.  Blue was for medication.  Green was for physical, occupational and speech therapies.  Yellow was for hygiene and miscellaneous items.  And Pink was for tracking meals and feeding tube maintenance.  It was the only thing I could do that gave me some sense of control.  But the truth was that I really had no control.  None of us did.  We were fighting against nature and losing.

After watching my mother’s chest rise and fall for half an hour, I finally felt comfortable enough to close my eyes.  But sleep didn’t come easily to me that night.  Between the rock hard chair and the bone-chilling cold, I had a rough time getting any sleep in the hospital room.  The moment I drifted off, my mother’s liquid coughing woke me.  Two more rounds of suctioning, followed by intercepting my mother’s team of doctors as the stopped by her room for their morning rounds.  After grilling them and filling in my spreadsheets, I had one hour to sleep before my father arrived for the “day shift.”  But another problem prevented me from napping.

I started cramping.

After several years of marriage, my husband and I finally decided that our wait was over. We wanted to be parents.  At thirty-six years old, my odds of having a healthy pregnancy were decreasing with each passing day.  Despite my mother’s illness, I couldn’t put off having children any longer.  We had to try.

The cramps grew worse.  It felt like someone was ripping out the walls of my uterus.  I gritted my teeth and swore that I would see a doctor about them after I left the hospital.  The moment my father arrived, I kissed my mother on the cheek and hurried out of the room.

Once I walked down the hall, I felt something wet trickle down my leg.  I ran to the bathroom and saw that it was blood.  In tears, I called my husband and told him to meet me in the ER at the hospital.  I was almost seven weeks along.  I stepped into the elevator and headed downstairs to ground level.  The receptionist immediately made me sit down in a wheelchair and an orderly whisked me off to a room where I began the slow process of losing the baby.

It continued through the day.  I was grateful that it ended in time for me to return to my mother’s bedside the following evening.  I was devastated, but I couldn’t afford to indulge myself with the luxury of mourning.  My mother needed me.  I said nothing to her or my father, but I felt like dying inside.

People have asked me how I did it.  How did I push down my own sorrow to be there for my parents?  I don’t know the answer to that question.  I don’t claim to have more strength or resilience than the next person does.  I’m not looking for a pat on the back for something that I think anyone else in my situation would have done.  I am writing this for people who are going through the most painful experience of their lives.  My hope is that you will find comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone.  You will find the strength from someplace within and get through whatever brought you to your knees.  The source of that strength may be your faith.  It may be your family, or it may be something completely different.  But that strength will rise up and carry you through every painful minute of every painful day.  And you will do what needs to be done.  I have faith in that.  And I have faith in you.

 

 

Being A Mom Without A Mom

Earlier this summer, I fed my daughter in the picnic area of the park. After watching my husband push my son on the swings for a few moments, I noticed a young mother sitting at picnic table next to me. She was feeding a baby close to my daughter’s age. An older woman, who I assumed was the young woman’s mother, fussed over a little boy close to my son’s age.

I quietly watched them as my daughter drank her milk. When the baby started to fuss, the young woman asked with exasperation, “What do I do?” Her mother immediately picked up the baby and gestured to her daughter. “Go take Jake to the playground.” The young woman’s weary face lit up.  “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” the older woman said, as she rubbed the wailing infant’s back. “I have this.” The young woman and her son smiled at each other and rushed off to the playground, while the older woman walked around the picnic area, trying to soothe the baby.

I felt a pang of envy as I looked at my own infant daughter. I don’t have anyone to do that for me. My mother passed away several years ago. And while I don’t begrudge any woman for having her mother, I wish my mother was still around for so many things.

I wish my mother knew that she had a grandson. After a year in hospice care, she died when my son was six weeks old. My mother had two daughters. She doted on all of her nephews. It would have thrilled her to have a grandson. Although I brought my son to visit her one time, near the end of her illness, I don’t know if she remembered that visit.

I wish my mother knew that she had a granddaughter. My little girl already comports herself like a lady. She is very much like her grandmother. Just as beautiful and feisty. Each smile is sweet and each gesture is graceful. My mother once told me that she “bossed people around with a smile.” She would have adored her tiny doppelgänger.

I wish my mother had brought me food when I first delivered the babies. She was the most amazing cook I’ve ever met. My mother could just taste something at a party and recreate it at home without at recipe. It would have brought her so much joy to whip something up in the kitchen and bring it over to my house when she visited her new grandchild.

I wish I could have called my mother when I was freaking out about the babies.  She would have known exactly how to calm my fears and assure me that everything would be okay.  Instead, I relied on Google, friends and any parenting book I could purchase.

I wish I could have cried on my mother’s shoulder when I felt like I was a failure as a parent. Or on those days when I felt so lost and alone. She would have listened to me and more importantly, really UNDERSTOOD me. No one understands you like your mother does.

I wish my children had one more person in their lives who thinks that they’re perfect. Someone who finds their temper tantrums adorable and plays Candy Land twenty times without appearing bored. My mother was an artist, who taught me how to draw flowers. She would have been so proud of her grandson’s blossoming artistic abilities. In my dreams, I see the two of them hunched over a table, as my mother guides my son’s hand along the paper.

But most of all, I wish I could tell my mother how much I admire and respect her. I never realized what an amazing woman she was until I had children. My mother juggled raising two small children, managing a household, and putting herself through school to obtain a master’s degree in clinical psychology. She devoted her life’s work towards helping the most challenging people in society:  prisoners and the mentally ill.

Each day I look into the faces of my children and feel my mother’s presence. I see her sweetness in my daughter’s smile and her fire in my son’s eyes. I hope that wherever her spirit lies, she knows that I am proud to be her daughter.

Excerpt from “My Mother’s Daughter” – A Tribute To My Mother

In and out.  In and out.  Gasping.  Rasping.  In and out.  The sound of my mother’s breathing broke the silence of the hospital room.  I shivered and pulled the chair closer to her bed.  Her room was always freezing.  I understood the reason.  Cold keeps the germs at bay.  But it was already difficult to sleep through the night in her room.

She was awake.  I knew it without even looking at her.  Her breathing changed.  That rough, rhythmic pattern was replaced by wet gurgling.  With mixed feelings, I paged the ICU nurse.  Someone entered the room, took one look at my mother struggling for air, and briskly slipped on a pair of gloves.  “Okay, I’m going to suction you,” the nurse said calmly, and adjusted the dials on the tubes that traveled down my mother’s trachea.

I cringed as my mother turned her gaze to me.  Her brown eyes welled up with tears as she gagged.  I held my mother’s hand and looked away through my own tears.  I hated this.  Watching her get suctioned felt like a punch in the stomach.  I felt like retching myself.  I hated feeling so God damn helpless.  There was nothing I could do to ease my mother’s pain.  All I could do was sit beside her and hold her hand as the nurse vacuumed the thick mucus that was slowly suffocating the life out of her.  It was just part of life on the ventilator.

After the nurse finished, my mother’s breathing returned to its former rhythm.  In and out.  In and out.  Gasping.  Rasping.  In and out.  Both of us knew that it would only be a matter of time before the mucus accumulated and I would have to call the nurse.  Again.  But until then, we tried to get some rest.

I’m not sure how she did it, but my mother actually fell back to sleep.  Maybe it was a side effect from her medications.  And there were plenty of them.  I created a spreadsheet to track all of them.  Actually, I created color-coded spreadsheets to track everything about her case.  Blue was for medication.  Green was for physical, occupational and speech therapies.  Yellow was for hygiene and miscellaneous items.  And Pink was for tracking meals and feeding tube maintenance.  It was the only thing I could do that gave me some sense of control.  But the truth was that I really had no control.  None of us did.  We were fighting against nature and losing.

After watching my mother’s chest rise and fall for half an hour, I finally felt comfortable enough to close my eyes.  But sleep didn’t come easily to me that night.  Between the rock hard chair and the bone-chilling cold, I had a rough time getting any sleep in the hospital room.  The moment I drifted off, my mother’s liquid coughing woke me.  Two more rounds of suctioning, followed by intercepting my mother’s team of doctors as the stopped by her room for their morning rounds.  After grilling them and filling in my spreadsheets, I had one hour to sleep before my father arrived for the “day shift.”  But another problem prevented me from napping.

I started cramping.

After several years of marriage, my husband and I finally decided that our wait was over. We wanted to be parents.  At thirty-six years old, my odds of having a healthy pregnancy were decreasing with each passing day.  Despite my mother’s illness, I couldn’t put off having children any longer.  We had to try.

The cramps grew worse.  It felt like someone was ripping out the walls of my uterus.  I gritted my teeth and swore that I would see a doctor about them after I left the hospital.  The moment my father arrived, I kissed my mother on the cheek and hurried out of the room.

Once I walked down the hall, I felt something wet trickle down my leg.  I ran to the bathroom and saw that it was blood.  In tears, I called my husband and told him to meet me in the ER at the hospital.  I was almost seven weeks along.  I stepped into the elevator and headed downstairs to ground level.  The receptionist immediately made me sit down in a wheelchair and an orderly whisked me off to a room where I began the slow process of losing the baby.

It continued through the day.  I was grateful that it ended in time for me to return to my mother’s bedside the following evening.  I was devastated, but I couldn’t afford to indulge myself with the luxury of mourning.  My mother needed me.  I said nothing to her or my father, but I felt like dying inside.

Because it was my fault.

To My Lost Little One: I Still Think Of You

To my lost little one,

I still think about you and wonder who you could have been.  Your older brother is four and a half years old.  You also have a younger sister who is one and a half years old.  I thought about you today, as I watched your little sister giggling at your older brother’s antics.  I wonder if you would have chosen to sit beside your sister and laugh, or chosen to stand up with your brother and put on a show.  Both of your siblings are already funny, strong-willed characters.  I think you would have been a funny, strong-willed character too.

On that horrible day over two years ago, I had a doctor’s appointment.  It was supposed to be a routine checkup, but I felt dread as I drove towards the medical office building.  The checkup went normally and I nearly left without saying anything.  But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.  So, I asked for an ultrasound.

The silence in the dark ultrasound room was deafening.  I stared at your image on the screen. After twelve weeks, you already looked like a baby. The ultrasound technician Kathy frantically traced my swollen belly with the probe.  As she desperately searched for good news, I studied the gentle curve of your back and your round little head.  I was instantly transported to a happier time. Two years earlier, in the same room, Kathy and I had looked at a similar image of your older brother.  But your brother had been a small wiggling bundle of energy even back then. I remembered Kathy chuckling and saying, “Wow!  You’re in trouble!  This one’s a live wire!” I remember the two of us laughing together.

Not this time. There was nothing to laugh about. There was nothing moving on the screen. Just stillness.

“Oh, honey,” Kathy said softly. “There’s no heartbeat.” She laid a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” I saw the tears in her eyes and knew that she was. I just nodded silently when she told me that she would go and get my midwife.

Once she left the room, a wave of darkness crashed over me, almost suffocating me in sorrow and guilt. I looked at your motionless little body on the screen and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I was wrong.” I searched the screen for some sign of life, hoping that my apology would bring your soul back.  I choked out one last plea. “I’m so sorry. Please come back to me.” But you didn’t come back.  Your tiny body remained motionless.

My midwife entered the room just as I broke down sobbing. I should have looked at you again, but I didn’t realize that it would be the last time I would see you.  I was ushered into another room where a doctor assured me that it wasn’t my fault. These things just happen. I listened to him as he walked me through what had to happen next, all the while thinking, you don’t understand. This is my fault.

After I drove away from the doctor’s office, I pulled into a parking lot, shut off the engine and wept. I apologized to you repeatedly.  I’m so sorry that I did this to you. I’m so sorry that my doubts drove you away.  I’m so sorry that I was scared to be an older parent to a second child. I’m so sorry that I wished it had taken longer to conceive you. I’m so sorry that I wanted a little more time alone with your older brother. I’m so sorry that I didn’t know if I could love you as much as I love him, because obviously I can. My heart broke because I already loved you so much.

To my darling little one, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I just wanted you to know that I still think of you.  Even though I love your little sister with all of my heart, she can’t take your place.  I dream of you running through the house with your siblings.  I’m writing this because I want people to know that you existed and that you matter. You weren’t with me for very long, but you changed me forever. I’ll never forget you and I’ll always love you.