On January 25th of the year
2000, at 5:10 in the morning, my mother took her last breath. She was gone just like the air
kissing a flower for just a small instant in time. At that moment, I realized what counts in
life.
What counts you may ask?
Everything that you do, and everything you say. As with any personal experience, seeing your mother
die and knowing that you will never be able to see, touch, and talk to her again is a painful experience
that will leave a permanent mark on your soul and is experienced at your own level of emotions. A
major part of you changes and it transforms from a reality to a memory. You become cognizant
that some of the crazy things your mother did actually made sense, had a purpose and she was right
on what she did all those years you ignored her because you had your own life to live and you knew
everything. The heartache will always be there and it may take a life time to completely
release the pain you feel when the most important woman in your life is gone.
If you look at it from a logical
point of view, that is the order of life. Parents go first, then siblings and hopefully, you will
have the opportunity to let your body go before any of your children. And this incredible cycle of
life continues with total disregard for feelings, emotions and thoughts.
My mother always told my sister
and I that she wanted to go before the two of us. We failed to comprehend the totality, reality, and
finality of death, especially where my mother was concerned. She always reminded my sister and I of
her wishes when the time came, and when the time came, we carried out her wishes. I have to tell you
that the most difficult thing I have ever done was saying goodbye to the first person that loved me
unconditionally and the only woman who was my hero while scattering her ashes in the ocean.
In 1998 my mother was
hospitalized with heart problems. After running a battery of tests, the doctors found out that her
heart valves had holes in them and leaked blood into her body, her aorta was totally calcified and the
others had passage blockages. During the time that she waited for the results and surgery, her mind
started to wonder and she lost touch with reality. Among other things, she began her attempts
to leave the hospital and go home, because this hotel had a terrible service she said. She was
restrained to the bed twenty-four hours a day having freedom only when I was there.
The doctors faced a big dilemma
regarding her surgery. If they operated on her and did everything that was needed to keep her heart
going for many years to come, she wouldn't survive the operation. With my consent, the doctors
agreed to go in and repair her heart valves and replace one of her main arteries and leave the rest just
the way it was.
She underwent triple bypass
surgery. Besides the lengthy recovery process, and of her mind continuously wondering around the
universe, her overall health improved tremendously. However, she kept on complaining about having
the feeling that her throat was closing on her and she couldn't breath.
The doctors kept on checking her
mainly to see how her heart was doing. The prognosis was always good. She continued to
complain about being short of breath, unable to walk without having the sensation of suffocating, couldn't
exercise and even walking to the corner store was a major goal she had to accomplish.
My mother's cardiologist was a
very young, polite, caring cardiologist that treated my mother as if she was the most important person in
the world. Needles to say, she was totally in love with him. She would do anything to
have the opportunity to go see him. Several times, he told my mother that she needed a general
physician, and she would always answer the same way. "You are my doctor and that is the end of it".
Therefore, when she called him complaining of major pain on her right side, he ordered hospitalization and
he was her main physician.
