Mount Hood, September 8, 2014; sunrise.
I remember the day clearly. “Happy birthday mom.” As I was leaving she said to me, “I know you’re worried about me, Tim. I’m OK, I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t OK, she wasn’t fine, and nothing went as planned. But what if this happened as it should have? Did things go as they were supposed to? Has she found peace? Is there more after this? Those are the default questions always asked. Are they worth asking now? No, they’re not.
I look for some deeper meaning, but all I come up with is how quickly, and violently, my mother left this world. Sweating after nine days of no liquid. She’d get tiny droplets squeezed from a minuscule sponge on a stick. A tiny orange porous thing soaked in a Dixie cup full of tap water. We’d wet her lips and then she’d chew on the sponge, mumbling incoherently. Afterwards, she’d reach up trying to grab the cup of liquid. No mom, you have to die. Every time I grunt and groan when bending down, I hear the sounds my mom would make laying on her death bed. She would grunt struggling to move, struggling to speak. There was no deeper meaning to it. She was stuck in a brain that broke, broke because it had to happen. The simple procedure: a lung biopsy with a needle had to happen. Not the stroke. That was simply bad luck. The doctor’s said that was the first known case, my mom’s case. It had to happen, because if it wasn’t for bad luck, my mom wouldn’t have any luck at all. An adult life full of surgeries, pain, and discomfort, leading to a mysterious world beyond ours.
She has to be an Angel now, has to be. My dearest mother protected me from a world I didn’t see. But she knew it, and she’d felt its wrath. I never saw it, never was let close to it. An only child left to the amusement of a world full of cousins that saw that wrath I was protected from. My cousins lived in it. I was the chosen child adopted into a large Irish family. My dad, an only child with few relatives of his own, also adopted into this large Irish family. Fresh-off-the-boat would describe this European family. My mom, the youngest. Burnt, beat up from a head on collision from a drunk driver, then suffering a devastating surgery due to a blockage of her aorta (doctors had to remove her stomach and intestines). She’d then suffer from debilitating pain the rest of her life following the aorta procedure. Then the stroke, and being removed from life support. My mom lived from pain med to pain med, day-in and day-out. She’d sweat after 9 days of no food or water, from pain. I couldn’t keep her comfortable. But, someone could.
The last day I’d see my mom with an ability to speak in quiet mumbles; her niece, a cousin of mine, would play “Hey Jude” on her phone, for my mom. My mom would sing along with the song word for word. My mom was in there, paralyzed from a procedure gone horribly wrong. Then she started sweating, so I’d call a nurse for pain meds, but she wouldn’t take the meds. “Mom are you in pain?” “Yes.” “If I get the nurse, will you take the meds.” “Yes.” “OK, I’ll get the nurse. I love you mom.” The morphine knocked her out, and she was gone.
It was an early morning phone call, dad went home with us the night before. My wife called, and then the hospital. We – my dad and I – we were already heading down to the medical center when the call came in: “We found your wife without a pulse this morning.” We ran to the room. I lifted the blanket off her still body. Nothing had moved from the night before. Her arm was in the same crooked position just under her chin. 14 days prior I was feeling guilty for not spending enough time with my mom on her birthday. And now, I was looking at her dead body. What the fuck just happened.
Three years ago, my extended family would bury a cousin of mine with whom I credited for saving my life. I never got to say goodbye in a traditional sense. I was left out of the “family” service. Just a service for the friends is what I got to attend. No graveside memorial for a person that told me to go home. I sat with her one afternoon while having a life crisis. I laid everything out on the table in front of this person, she said, “Go talk to your mom, she loves you. If you run, she won’t stop you, you need to accept responsibility and ask her honestly for help.” Two days later I was at my parent’s house; an hour after getting there I’d be at a hospital suffering another myocardial infarction. My cousin died while out on a bicycle journey.
I’m taking this same bicycle journey, albeit with a different route, to the same location where I believe my cousin communicated with me on the day she died. Mount Hood’s Timothy Lake. 3 years ago, I’d be up on Mount Hood the day my cousin died. This year’s ride, it’s going to clear my head rebooting my inner-self, a solipsist’s ride. Solipsism in the ride, living along with others, for others, post ride. My mom was first diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago. She was at the same hospital having the cancer removed, the very hospital she died in, she was sent home the very day my cousin died.
I won’t be looking for answers, I’ll be looking for peace and comfort in one’s own head, mine.
Timothy Lake, September 7, 2014.
The Naturally Aspirated Adventures of Tim 