January 13, 2000

January 13, 2000
The incessant buzzing of my alarm clock rings in my ear. I swat at the snooze button a few times before I finally resign myself to the impending fate that lies before me. It is now 7:00 in the morning and I must get up. Teresa, the hospice nurse, will be here in just a few minutes and it is my turn to let her in. I quickly dress and walk into the toy room, swearing under my breath as I trip over the box of pictures that my sister had dragged out days before. Sometimes, she does not think clearly. With our mother as sick as she is, my sister is worrying about pictures.

It is January 13, 2000 and I am thirteen years old. I am thirteen years, one month and six days old, to be exact. I wipe the remaining sleep from my eyes as I step up to my mother’s bed. I suppose that the nurses had installed an oxygen machine late the night before, because it had not been there when I had gone to bed. But it is here now though, and it scares me. I hear a faint rattling noise in the room, and I cannot tell if it is coming from my mother or from the machine that she is now connected to. It is unnerving. I take her hand in mine and raise it to my lips. Her fingers twitch slightly when they touch mine, but that is the only response that she gives me. I hear a rapid knock coming from the front porch, it must be Teresa. I let her in and she checks on mom's breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure. All I see is her poking and prodding at my mother; I want her to stop and leave us alone. I sit at the window and watch the rain drops pounding the cement outside our house. I feel like sitting out in the rain.

After what seems like and eternity, but is realistically closer to fifteen minutes, Teresa comes over to me and shakes my shoulder. I jerk around with a start, but she just wants to use the telephone. While she makings her call, I go back over and sit down by my mother again. There is a very foreboding feeling weighing heavily on my heart, heavier than the sheets of rain pouring down just beyond the window pane. I take her hand in mine and finally all the words I have been meaning to say to her have found a voice.

“Mom, I know that you can hear me. I just wanted to let you know that I love you, and that it’s okay for you to let go now. I’m ready to let you go. I know that your parents miss you and they are ready to have you back. I’ll be okay here without you, you can go home now. I love you.”

I stave off all tears as Teresa walks back in the room. She tells me to go wake up my Dad and my sister, Amy, then tells me that I should go back and wait in my room. I do not like Teresa. I lay on my bed in an uneasy sleep for a few hours; I have cried myself into exhaustion. At around 10:45, I hear the door to my father’s room slam shut. Silently, I creep through the hallway back to the toy-room. Still partially around the corner, I peer through the glass door that separates my mother from me. Amy and Dad have gone, but Teresa is still there, and now there are three new nurses with her that I have never seen before. They look nice, so I decide to take my chances. Slowly, I walk into the room with my head hung low, positive that I will be sent away at any moment.

“Sarah, honey, we’re just changing the sheets and cleaning Linda up a bit. You don’t have to be in here if you don’t want to be.”

This nurse has red hair and soft green eyes. She looks like a mother. Teresa just glares at me, her eyes a cold blue.

“I kind of want to stay, if that’s alright. I’ll leave if I get in the way though,” I say to my shoes.

Nurse Green Eyes assures me that I am fine, that they are happy to allow me to stay in the room, and that I will not be in the way. Once they finish changing the sheets on mom’s bed, they all retreat into the dining room to sit down and drink tea. I sit back down to hold mom’s hand. I turn it over in mine, palm up, and study every line, every wrinkle, every scar. I memorize the pattern of her hand, the course texture of housewife hands, the inherent softness of a mother. I want to remember this most. I want to remember her hands.

Suddenly, things start to beep; I do not know what they are, what they mean, or how to make them stop. Teresa and the other nurses run into the room. They make the beeping go away. The low, monotonous rasping has now turned into a desperate struggle for breath, and I realize it was not the machine making the noise after all. One of the nurses runs to get Dad and Amy. Dad comes up and grabs me from behind, and tries to drag me out of the room. I throw my elbow back, break from his grasp, and run to sit down in my chair next to her. I pick up her hand. Slowly, her breathing tapers off and I lie my head down on the pillow next to her head and gaze out of the window. It has stopped raining and the sun is shining. I bet if I looked hard enough, I could see a rainbow. I do not want to see a rainbow. I sit with her hand in mine until it grows cold.

Calmly, I walk over to the other side of the room to the box of pictures. It finally dawns on me why my crazy sister had dragged out that box. I guess I was the only one that did not see it coming. An eerie silence settles over the room. People are moving, but they are not making any sound. It is odd. Teresa walks slowly up to me and sits down next to me as I come across my favorite picture: my mother at sixteen years old, she had just won the Cullman County Fair Queen pageant, 1962. Teresa opens and closes her mouth a few times, as if to say something.

“I’m sorry you lost your momma,” she finishes weakly.

I think for a second, I cannot answer her. Instead, I just hand her the picture.

“She was pretty, wasn’t she?”
Teresa opens her mouth again to answer me. This time though, no sound comes out.

I get up and walk out of the room. Teresa is still holding the picture in her hand. As I pass by my sister’s room, I see her and my dad on her bed. She is crying on his shoulder. She looks up at me, silently asking me to come in there with them. I keep walking. When I get to my room, I close the door, crawl onto the bed, get under the covers, and unplug my alarm clock.