On Monday, October 17, 2011 my mother called me at 9:41 p.m. At that moment my life changed, and I didn’t even realize it.
Some background information:
Me. I am twenty years old. I just finished my third year in university studying History and English. Do I want to be a teacher? I really don’t think so. I have an older sister who is twenty-three and just finished her second year of law school. She’s working for the provincial crown currently (University educated, and I’m still the disappointment in the family.
When I was six years old my mother was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. My parents didn’t tell me about this at six years old (because I mean really, at six years old I barely understood what it meant to colour inside the lines). I just thought my mom had trouble walking, not a big deal. I remember when my parents called me and my sister around the kitchen table. I was nine, she was twelve. My mother was sitting down (which was usual), and my dad was leaning his back against the counter by the sink (which was usual). I wish I could tell you the exact words that were said, it would make for a better story, but I don’t remember. I remember my mom crying quietly; she was looking at me and my sister, her eyes pleading for us to… well I’m not quite sure what. Not abandon her? Reject her? Ignore her? Disown her? We didn’t do any of that. My dad was the one who did the talking, then me and my sister were dismissed. Here, almost twelve years after me and my sister have never had a conversation about my mom’s disease. We both know it’s there, but we don’t talk about it.
Over the years my mom has progressed past “having trouble walking.” Fifteen years after her diagnosis she is now only able to take a couple steps as long as someone is holding her weight up. She is basically bound to her wheel chair.
That’s about all the background that is needed at this point
At 9:41 p.m. on Monday October 17, 2011 my mother called me from my father’s cell phone. Which is strange for several reasons: my father’s cell phone is itty bitty. It’s ancient yes, but almost unusably small. My mother is not dextrous enough to hold this phone, never mind dial it. For another reason, my father rarely has his cell phone on him (and when he does have it, you could bet your life savings that the battery is dead). So this was weird. I remember exactly what I was doing. I was sitting on my twenty-five-dollar-goodwill couch in my living room. I was eating Tostitos. I was doing research for my American History Essay proposal on Bacon’s Rebellion. I was talking to my roommate about how it’s too bad we didn’t find out about the Selena Gomez concert earlier so we could have bought tickets (If you’re looking to judge me, this might be the best opportunity). I answer the phone, this is what my mother says: “Hi Sarah, I’m going to need you to come home for a couple days. I’m at the hospital with your father and they have to keep him for a few days for tests. Can you come home and look after me?” The panic set in instantly. I didn’t know what was going on. Well wait. I didn’t know the extent of what was going on.
The previous Friday I had come home from school because my dad’s lung had collapsed, and they said it would take a bit of time to re-inflate it, so I was looking after my mom that day. That was what I thought the health issue was.
So why was he in the hospital? They had inflated his lung, he was supposed to be fine. He was supposed to be the big jolly man, I was terrified of as a child (he was a BIG guy when I was growing up). I told my mom I would be there as soon as I could. I hung up the phone and froze. How was I supposed to process that? I was scared, that was all I could be. More scared than I had ever been before. In the next 24 hours the sacredness would only increase.
I stuffed a couple shirts into my back pack, some underwear and a tooth brush too. My roommate handed me a box of tissues and walked me to my car. I was sobbing. Something you should know about me: I’m a crier. I cry at the drop of a hat. Happy things, sad things, funny things, when I’m injured, and when I’m scared. I started to drive towards the highway; street lights and stop lights streaming through my teary vision. I drove 25 minutes across the city to get to the highway, only to find it closed for construction; I drove back the 25 minutes, across the city the other way for another half hour onto the other highway and sped home. My memory tells me it was raining. It wasn’t. My memory finds some sick pleasure in pathetic fallacy.
When I got to the hospital I rushed into the Emergency Room (that’s where my mother said they were). Does anyone else ever find that when you are in the BIGGEST hurry, everyone else takes their sweet time. None of the nurses could help me. They just kept sending me to someone else. They finally told me what door to go through, so I scurried over to it to find it locked. Once I finally found my parents they were in this little room, my dad sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked old. I never thought of my parents as old. Just regular. By comparison to most parents of people my age, my parents are old. But seeing my dad sitting there in a hospital gown, sallow faced, grey hair, unshaven: it was like looking at someone I didn’t know. It was like the hospital had taken away the man who had been my soccer coach every summer, the man who taught me how to ride my bike, the man who walked me to school quizzing me on my times tables and practicing for spelling tests, the man who gave me my sense of humour, the man who taught me how to shake someone’s hand without giving the impression of a wet fish, the man who was successful in everything he did, the man who I looked up to in everyway it’s possible to look up to someone. He was gone, and this old sickly man had taken his place. My dad is the one I go to for advice on everything: so now what happens when the man I depend on for anything and everything just isn’t available anymore?
