WAIT FOR IT

JOURNAL ENTRY #234 - Tuesday, Dec 15, 2020

Dear Diary,

Everyday I ask how much further?? How much more can we both endure!

It is killing me to see her once strong body in this wretched condition.

I can only guess what’s going through her unconscious mind.

I'm haunted with thoughts of what she felt leading up to her involuntary sedation; tubes pushed forcefully down her 75 year old throat.

Or when she screamed bloody terror into the phone at 4AM in the morning as I called her up in concern… the nurse dropping down his phone in manic struggle... her begging to be set free from his wires entangling any form of retreat.

Before an injection ejected her permanently from her position of free will.

This was back when her voice box was still functional; unstifled.

Her conscious mind still synthesized fear and abandonment.

Before my mind's eye was seared with cries permanently plied into my psyche like PTSD following a soldier home from war.

I fear feeling what she felt, and yet I still fall into the trap of fomenting frightful thoughts about what more I could have possibly done.

How might my blind inaction have made this very much my own fault?

And if it's not my fault, then whose is it?

Whose is it?

-LH-

==========

My mother was the one who taught me how to blunt pain using the power of the pen. It was a skillset endowed upon me from a early age; a skillset that had brought me my own comfort and distraction from the world for many years before.

In fact, it had been just a week prior (the 7th), that mom was being her usual stubborn self. Once again she was telling me what to do as though she lived under my roof and not a thousand miles away. Yet under that abrasive resilience she possessed, there was a tender hearted woman who simply delighted in carving her own path (and sometimes mine).

Her shrill laughter filled my kitchen as she cackled at the Facebook filters her grandchildren were sending of themselves. So heavily amused, her laughter frequently flowed into coughing fits for which I would ask her to take it easy (for "her own sake"). In between the gleeful groans and guffaws, she would share her ridiculously flawed plans to take care of everyone else but herself. Regardless, I would entertain the plans.

"She's just like you, mom. Mannerisms and everything." I mused out loud.

"Son, I am mailing you a notarized check for 20 thousand dollars in the mailbox, tomorrow. Please deposit it when it arrives and make a down payment immediately on Layla's college tuition fees for me. I don't want you dragging your feet on this."

"Of course a check in the mail." I thought smugly to myself. "How old-fashion and unnecessary. That's so mom."

"Does it have to be this week? It's going to be pretty busy around here... Plus, Layla's only 2 years old. We have time."

There was a brief pause before she shot back, "Ok, well don't procrastinate on this. You think you have time, but I certainly don't. I could croak any moment."

I bristled and flatly replied, "Stop."

I hated when she would talk about her dying so casually. It was an uncomfortable conversation I wasn't ready for, but it seemed to be her favorite topic of choice these days. In the awkward silence following, she must have sensed my change of mood and the imminent "end of call" I had began formulating in my mind.

Deftly, she diverted the conversation elsewhere. "Son. Help mom with this crossword puzzle more, please." Putting on her bifocals and opening her trusty black, leather bound Moleskine pad, she spoke swiftly.

"What's a six letter word that begins with 'L'? The clue is 'something left behind to carry'."

I effortlessly took the bait. "Laptop! Hmmm... Locket? …Litter?"

"Litter! That's it!" she interrupted. Wait… no, that's not it. The 4th letter has to be an 'A'"

Still distracted with nagging thoughts of dead relatives, I could barely focus on the words she was saying, let alone the specific words we both searched for.

"Mom. I don't know." I said with cold, disinterest. "I give up."

"Hmph…."

Silence fell upon our video call as she continued writing in her little black book. That writing pad was mom's most prized possession. It was where she kept all of her quotable quotes, lottery picks, Sudoku solutions and half completed crossword puzzles. It was also where she jotted down her random fanciful ideas to follow up on; like giving away thousands of dollars to a toddler who could barely count to two.

Mom was quite the eccentric, journal-loving puzzle solver and yet, if that is what made her happy, I was happy as well to oblige her. After all, she was the one who had taught me to paint words so colorfully with my own crayon box of adjectives and adverbs.

"Hey mom." Silence broken. She knew what was next. "So Layla the scholar here is eating crayons again. I will have to call you back later."

Without looking up from her little black book, she cleared her throat once again and replied "Ok son. I'm going to go visit papa now. Don't let this be the last time we video chat."

And just like that -- it would be.

==========

JOURNAL ENTRY #232 - Friday, Dec 11, 2020

Dear Diary,

My current lot in life is a sleepless nightmare from which there is neither rest nor awakening.

Dad passed away three days ago unexpectedly while in hospice.

Now mom is fighting for HER life with every ounce of being.

Unbeknownst to me, both of them falling victim to The Virus.

A cloaked and contagious cretin, farm fed with gross politicization and reckless inconsideration,

Devouring it's weakened maskless marks; stealing their very last breaths

While in the very same breaths, the monster’s unmarked allies denying and spreading his existence.

I purposely paint this picture with horror flick inflections.

It describes a sad reality of my bed-ridden mother

learning of her husband's death as insult to her own injury,

before falling deeper into her own oxygen-deprived delirium,

before me finding her like this and stumbling stupidly through critical next steps,

before her finding a lingering lucid moment to look me directly in the eyes one final time and say "Patience son."

tears freezing in the shivering cold of a crowded hospital parking lot,

before me rubbing her raw bare hands, wiping sweat from her brow, knowing she likely had Covid but not caring,

before her being carted off by masked strangers to a quarantined box building.

That closely guarded box I could not enter nor approach.

Told to think outside of it ----

The dark descent continued from there to ER floors,

to invasive tests, to breathing machines,

to teary eyes open, to surgical tubes

to dry eyes closed, to vent settings,

PEEP settings,

FI02 settings,

new nurses,

new floors,

DNR options,

old infections,

new infections,

to old tired doctors,

to new old tired doctors,

old drugs, new drugs

To newer drugs to replace old drugs

to...... [STOP!]

I question if the nightmare has gone on long enough.

I question if my praying and pleading is in vain.

Am I -- working against God's will or am I working blindly within it?

Am I -- supposed to "LET HER GO AND HAVE FAITH IN GOD!"

or "HANG IN THERE AND HAVE FAITH IN GOD!"

REALLY, does 'IN GOD' have ANYTHING TO DO with ANYTHING AT ALL???!!

……..I feel guilty for questioning. I feel guilty for NOT questioning.

I. Just. Feel. Guilty.

I once thought empathy was my strong suit, but I'm exhausted with feeling anything ---

Mom… I don't know. I give up.

Life's ways are an enigma I cannot understand.

A puzzle whose purpose subsumes no solution.

My haunted final moments with you I can't un-remember

and I don't know what to do with it all… except write it down.

All I wonder now

is how much longer

before struggle ceases and only sorrow remains??

-LH-

==========

The answer was 'eight days'.

Eight days later, mother died and joined her husband in the vast unknown.

Utterly heartbroken, I found myself in the vast unknown of my own mental grave.

"Why?" I repeatedly pleaded with the great nothingness. I wanted full explanations; only to receive partial answers that agitated even more complicated conundrums.

"We had plans. Why plan or hope for anything? What now? ANSWER ME!!!"

My demands were all met with deafening silence. A depressed, painful silence even my daughter couldn't distract me from and an emptiness from which there was no call to end.

Exactly two weeks later to the day my mother died, I received notice of a package in the mail from her now defunct address. In a foggy stupor, I let the miserable reminder sit for 3 days longer before I even had the mental clarity to conjure any curiosity for its contents.

Reluctantly, I headed to the post office to retrieve my sadness. Opening the package, a check fluttered out immediately, landing gracefully at my feet like an auspicious olive branch after a disastrous flood -- multiple zeros catching my eyes.

"20 thousand DOLLARS and zero CENTS!," I whispered loudly, face mask catching phlegm as I scanned the document.

I was flabbergasted; renewed intrigue and bittersweet emotion springing alive. Flipping the piece of paper over, my eyes searched for more clarifying explanation. Sure enough, starting in the memo section of a 20 thousand dollar check were several scrawled sentences, stubbornly pushing their way beyond the "Do not write below this line" section. The quaint cursive handwriting was clearly that of my mother.

"Of COURSE she wrote a long form essay on the back of a bank note." I thought with longing humility. "That's so mom."

There, through her remnant writings, she spoke one final time,

Tuesday, Dec 8, 2020

"Dear Layla. I’m so very proud of you granddaughter. You remind me so much of myself when I was your age. Yes, I remember. Guess what, this money is for you! Don't let your parents spend it on themselves, ok? I'm also leaving you a special gift. It contains all my thoughts and heart on paper. When you finally master reading, it will help you understand who I am. In this journal, you will also find the answers to all life's puzzles... or perhaps create your own. Continue on….

Love,

Grandma Rachel

-RH-

==========

I stood still as a statue, staring solemnly at the cursive script. Three silent readings passed before untamed tears blurred any attempt at a fourth repeat. Deep heaving breaths were taken through the flimsy fabric, wiping wetness away from my pained expression, not wanting to suffocate on my own grief and emotion.

Digging back into the package, I found the little black book. Carefully opening its pages, I flipped through several of them, cautiously perusing the contents before finally turning to the last page that had been written in.

"Oh... wow."

Staring back at me was the last crossword puzzle mom and I had worked on together. She had completed it; highlighting her answer in bright yellow. I knew she was deliberately leaving a message for me through my daughter. (That's so mom…)

It was perhaps a message that I wasn't willing to receive or understand -- until now.

It was the answer to the question I'd been struggling with since her untimely death, "What now?"

The only solution had always been there, staring back at me; awaiting my acknowledgement.

Now here it was; manifested in the form of a parting gift

for a granddaughter my mom would never physically meet;

A granddaughter, of curiously striking resemblance,

who did not yet understand life's contours.

6 letter word, beginning with 'L', 4th letter 'A'.

Something left behind for us to carry.

My mother's final word was LEGACY.

And her final instruction to us still here -- 'continue on'.