Photo by cottonbro studio

She fidgeted in her chair beside my hospital bed. She would go between reading her romance novel, setting it down, then out for a cigarette. Then pacing the room. Reading. Then out for another smoke. 

I couldn’t talk. I had a tube down my nose, dry-scraping my esophagus with every micro-movement; pumping bile from my stomach.

I spent days unable to speak, mindlessly staring at a television screen with the remote out of reach. 

My mom stayed with me until the tube came out, abrading its way up my throat and out of my nostril; burning; the taste of vomit, acid.

Right after the surgery, my mom's stepmother's latest husband said they had cut open my stomach and took out all my guts and put them on a small table. Then they combed through my intestines until they found the tiny appendix. They snipped it off, "burnt it", then shoved all my guts back inside my body before stitching me up. 

I was fourteen.

I thought of my insides, all red and bulbous, getting cold and drying out on a stainless steel tray while I watched my mom fidget. She chewed her nails, then caught me watching her. She smiled, warming me inside, and gently patted my forearm. 

My stomach clenched.

I couldn't speak for a couple days after the tube came out. She fidgeted more, stopping only after she asked me if I minded if she returned to work. She was falling behind, she said. I croaked an OK and she said she loved me. Then she went back out for a cigarette.

It had been the longest time we stayed in the same room together. Alone. 

That experience made me intrepid toward hospitals. People coming in to take care of me, checking in on me. Smiling. Caring. I spent five days in my bedroom, alone. I spent what felt like years alone—my entire childhood. And even though I knew this attention was fleeting, and probably within a month after we would return home, things would go right back to the way they were before, it did not matter. I could enjoy this time. And I would go home knowing that at least one parent showed me that I do, in fact, mean something more to them than just one of two spawn they were saddled with because Mom wanted a baby. An accessory of flesh and bone and blood. 

But, babies grow up and often become less cute and squishy, and no longer totally dependent on you for survival.

When Baby becomes their own person, things get complicated.

The last time we were in a hospital room together, it was her turn. She couldn't speak. Her skin was so dry it stiffened, and her whole forearm shifted when I touched it.

Before she fell into the coma, she seemed so content. Euphoric. She asked me to promise her that I would keep making art, and I promised.

My aunt sniffled in the corner.

I paced the room, waiting. Would she live? Would she die?

I was eighteen.

I never got time alone with her again.

When it was my turn in hospital, it was just us—Mom and Daughter. Nobody was afraid that I would actually die; the girl whose parents were told that if they delayed even an hour in bringing me in that their daughter would be dead. It was unlikely. I was too young, I guess. But a 48-year-old woman who smoked for 32 years, got inoperable lung cancer, and was given six months to live but survived another three-and-a-half years needed goodbyes. It was our last chance, whether we accepted it or not.

On day three of the coma, I paced in and out of her hospital room. One of my cousins tried to comfort me. 

Her body flung forward and I ran, screaming, toward her, begging her to wake up. A nurse bolted into the room, forcing her body back onto the thin mattress.

Wake up! Wake up, please!  

I wanted "our turn". Just us. I wanted her to open her eyes. I wanted her to stay with me.

I needed more time.

We were only just beginning.

I was just starting to grow up, I promise. 

Christmas was her favorite time of year. She would blast Elvis Presley Christmas songs while she and I decorated the artificial fir tree with antique ornaments she finally let me touch for the first time.

I was sixteen.

She would sing along, off-key, and I would listen, not yet secure enough to sing along with her. 

The windows were open and a cool Florida breeze leaked in through the screens. 

I remember this moment with her most. Wordless time, doing anything together. Something she loved.

But we did not get more time. We never got another moment alone in a hospital together. And we never had enough time outside of sterile walls. 

I was too young, too ignorant, and too selfish. And she smoked too much. 

~~~

“Then It Was Over” is an early draft of a brief narrative nonfiction piece I’m working on.

What do you think of it so far?

My best,

Sara

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