In Miten Drinen (In the middle of everything)

Friday, 13 January, 2012

The message on my voice mail was from my brother who gruffly informed me that “something is wrong with Mom.” Instantly, my heartbeat changed rhythm; it skittered, then thudded. I had ignored the ringing phone, an hour ago, because I was working: editing, writing. Whatever it was felt more important than chatting. Now, it turned out, that while I was dodging interruptions, my mother was slurring her words and experiencing numbness on her left side. I didn’t have to check with my neurologist brother-in-law to know what these symptoms meant: stroke.

My mother’s friend called EMS or the Fire Department—we’re still not certain which. But they arrived swiftly, behaved professionally and efficiently, delivering her to the nearest hospital. I left my older son, home from college, in charge of picking up his younger brother from high school. When I kissed him, on the top of his head, he smelled lovely: musky, familiar. He hugged me, solemnly.

My husband, who had been working from home that day, drove while I made one call after the other to: my sister in Maine, my aunt in New Jersey, my mother’s two best friends on Long Island and another to my brother, who was shaken up and planning to take the Red Eye from LA. I tried to gather information on my mother’s condition, but all anyone knew for certain was that she was able to hobble to let in the EMS workers—a good sign—and that she hadn’t been taken to “her” hospital, the one in which she worked as a social worker for over twenty-five years. The nurses and doctors she loved would not be called down to the ER to provide support.

When we arrived at the hospital, my mother was on a gurney, parked in the hall outside the ER, in nothing but a gown over her pants—shoeless, sock-less, exposed. But she was propped up on her elbow, smiling, and talking to the resident—a short, thin, be-speckled boy who looked like he could be my older son’s classmate. When she questioned why she had to be taken to the stroke unit—now that her symptoms had abated—he spoke to her kindly, patiently. And though she tried to charm him to let her go home, he didn’t relent.

The stroke unit was upstairs, a four bed “suite” already filled with three other patients—all men, all younger than my mother, and all in much worse shape. My mother was hooked up to a machine that, periodically, let out jarring, headache-producing beeps. “How is she supposed to sleep here?” I asked, over and over, to no one in particular, once I learned that she would have to spend the night.

My mother’s mood was giddy—as is often the case, I find, following a traumatic event. She laughed with my husband as they read from the instruction sheet she’d received from one of the neurologists about changing her habits to prevent strokes. “You’ll have to give up cake,” my husband teased her, well aware of my mom’s penchant for sweets, in particular chocolate and donuts. “But I love cake,” she said, pouting.

My husband was his usual comforting self; in an emergency, he’s the guy you want. Tired, after a crisis, he’ll often withdraw, become grumpy, retreat into cyberspace. But, at a hospital, he’s a prince.

I was not so gallant.

When my dad was dying of cancer, my mother was beside me in the ER as I trembled, struggled for breath, shell-shocked. She told one of her nurse-friends, “This is my gentle daughter.” “Gentle” could have been code for: anxious, introverted, not up for a fight. My younger sister, in contrast, is steely and brave: she toured China by bike for three weeks, horseback rode through Portugal, learned disaster training as a doctor in Israel, worked as a psychiatric resident in NYC on 9/11. But gentle or not, I am the one around. My brother and sister would have to fly in from the Northeastern and Western corners of the country.

My sister flew in from Israel too late to see my father; she got the news of his death as soon as she stepped off the plane. Rising to the occasion, despite her sadness, she helped my mother make funeral arrangements, replaced the cracked toilet seat in my parents’ downstairs bathroom, then cleaned up for the guests who came to sit Shiva. This time, my mother didn’t seem to be in grave danger; but no one was taking any chances, despite my mother’s protests: “I’m not up for playing hostess.” I discussed, with my siblings, what little I knew about my mother’s condition—and what my sister and her husband could gather from talking to her neurologist—as I paced the halls. I am not the best person for the job of team leader in my family or any group. I’d rather fall back, work alone, observe. But, as I was in the thick of things, this was my role—at least for one night.

I collapsed in the chair next to my mother’s bed and complained about the “beeping” to the cheerleader of a nurse--who happily reported my mother was the most talkative patient she’d ever had on the stroke unit--and tried not to stare at the youngish woman weeping quietly on the chair next to her sleeping (also youngish) husband’s bed. Finally, we kissed my mother goodbye and headed home, promising to return the next day, before she was scheduled for a MRI.

When we got back to our house in New Jersey, my sons were seated at the dinning room table, each quietly doing work on his laptop. I blinked and imagined the same scenario a week from this time: only my younger boy would be here. A year and a week: we’d be returning to an empty house.

This, I thought, would be the rest of my life: a series of leave-taking. I could clutter up my days with work and chores and busyness, but still the phone would ring and loss would find me. I swear it was as if an apparition appeared on my staircase, not the Grim Reaper, with his dramatic black hood and menacing scythe in hand, but his delicately-built, downtrodden brother, the Angel of Loss.

I called the hospital. My mother was doing fine and was most likely out of danger. Bleary-eyed, my husband and I sunk into the couch and, with our sons, watched Top Chef Texas.

The good looking guy from Malibu was eliminated. It was his turn to leave. It’s not my mother’s turn, not yet.