The truth is, when it comes to writing about Mom, I stumble a bit. No, I lie. Not just a bit. I stumble, I fall and I don’t want to get up. I wish I could write about it as it is. But the question I’m still asking myself is “What is?” Not what if. We’re done with what-ifs. So, the least complicated answer I console myself with is… I am in denial. And my Mom is nowhere home.
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Friday January 2, 2009, the doctors made the announcement: Mom was deteriorating. Liver cirrhosis, renal failure, sepsis, DIC, SIRS, you name it! The doctors made it sound like they were medals Mom would wear on her chest when she goes marching in to heaven. Somehow, I felt like my Mom was just the ‘Bed #6 Lady’ to some of these life-savers. Somehow. Sometimes. Not all the time.
So Mom was stepping out the door of her life, that was what they were saying without saying it. Her days were numbered. And no, they could not help. Intubation would make her suffer longer. ICU was not an option. Mom had started to bleed – and it was a matter of weeks, maybe days before she would bleed like a water-filled balloon poked all over. All to be done was to see if Mom would react to the strongest ever antibiotics they gave her.
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Oh by the way, the chemo was at the lowest dose. Mom took it well. But not her body, her kidneys, her liver. She wanted so much to fight, but her body had become the battleground by then. I imagined one standing in a house and watching the walls collapsing baring one’s naked spirit. The enemies aren’t just at the door. They are the new walls eating at one’s spirit soul-lessly. And that one…is now my mother.
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So it was NOT renal ‘failure’. It was most probably just kidneys infection. The antibiotics did its magic and the blood poisoning was de-poisoning. So okay, go home, no more chemo, no worries. So Mom came home and life goes on. Forget about the medals she was going to wear on her chest when she goes marching in, forget about the standing in a house watching the walls collapsing baring her naked spirit, forget about the enemies at the door, the gates, the walls or what have you.
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Mom came home.
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But she never really came back. I am now the Mom. Together with Ka Cher, Lil Sis, Bibik, Lam and Flick. We are mothering Mom right now, these un-numbered days. Guarding her naked body, breathing spiritlessly and homelessly. Her memories have left her. Her memories are wearing those medals of our good times…marching in to heaven.
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Good night, Mom.
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Questa è Enida 
my heart sank, enida.