To love enough
My mother isn’t speaking to my father. She hasn’t spoken to him in five
years, but for that, my father is truly grateful.
I was crying the last time she did speak to him. I saw the exchange though I
could not hear the words. His whisperings, her whisperings.
The two of them silhouetted against the window light at the end of the room.
My father leaning over my mother’s gurney, pressed forehead to forehead.
The word “Surgery” on the doors behind them forming a caption for the
picture they made. Hands clasped together as if believing they held each
other’s hearts. As longingly as the first time they had reached for each other,
as desperately as two lovers being forced apart.
Being forced to part on this day of life and death.
They had made the decision together, to do or die... to do and die. These two
who had lived for and in each other’s dreams these past forty years. How
could they help being apart?
My mother suddenly had a disease that was cutting the blood flow to her
brain. It was deteriorating her life and doctors said that it would take it in
three years. They also said her life could be prolonged if the surgery was
done now. Twelve brave hearts had gone before her but only three of them
had walked away.
I anxiously watched their process of decision making. My mother wanting to
live, wanting to try. She was determined to fight until the last moment!
How brave we knew she was; we three sisters gathered around her hospital
bed, witnessing my mother fluttered in pain and feeling time pushing us
toward her fate the next day. We smiled slow to leave, hoping our “Good
nights” were not our good-byes.
