Midnight Reflections

I think I speak for not only my family but for everyone with a beloved mother that the hardest thing to experience in life is sickness. No matter the severity of any illness whether it’s a cold, flu, maybe even strep throat, it hurts to witness your mother get sick. 

The worst part of witnessing these things is being too young to help. 

I’ve remembered every time my mother has gotten sick, but there is only one time I keep trying to forget. 

February 2023.

I should’ve known things would go to hell because it was an abnormal day. We were iced in once again. It was too dangerous to go to work, school, or the store. We had to work with what we had such as food, electricity, and water. 

It was supposed to be a normal day. 

I remember being in my room, texting my boyfriend, listening to music and doing my normal routine which was nothing during times like this. My sister was in her room watching The Last of Us. My parents were in the kitchen and my mom was preparing food for everybody. 

I should’ve asked her if she needed help. 

My life entirely changed when I heard the ruckus going on in the kitchen. I began to listen in from my bedroom. I heard my sister burst out of her room and running towards the kitchen. I knew then I had to spring into action. I didn’t want to though. I was scared. I also knew I couldn’t be and that I had no choice but to face what was happening.

My dad and sister were helping my mom catch her breath. She didn’t look good. This was serious. This wasn’t a cold. This was something I denied becoming my future. 

We sat my mom on a chair. 

I’ve known my mother for eighteen years and ten months, nineteen years if you count the womb because that’s just how close we are. I know my mother’s face when she’s not ok. 

And she really wasn’t ok this time. 

She tried to talk. 

I was so scared. We were iced in the house. The roads were dangerous. She had never felt this way before. I had no medical experience at the time, nor did my older sister and my dad was just as scared as we were but I appreciate him hiding it. 

She told us her heart felt like it was racing, she felt faint, and her blood pressure was high. 

What do I do? What can I do to help? What can I do to take it away from her and put it on me? That’s all I could ask myself. 

That night was the worst night of my life. That night left a permanent scar on our family’s heart. 

Nothing was ever the same that night. We tried everything we could to help my mom but there was nothing we could possibly do to make her ok. Eventually, we had no choice but to call an ambulance, but even they couldn’t do anything to help her. 

Ever since that night I had to live through multiple nights of being woken up to the sound of commotion coming from my parents room or being woken up by my sister telling me she has to call an ambulance again because mom got the feeling once more. 

I felt like I was being punished. 

It’s like someone in the universe knew that my mother was my weakness and they were taunting me by torturing her. 

Me and my mom had a rocky relationship. We argued often, but loved each other more than anything. I had never regretted every argument I had with her so much in my entire life. All I wanted was to be there for my mom. I wanted her to feel loved, safe, and cared for. I wanted to make sure she really felt it. 

It took a long time for things to run steady again. My brave mom fought so much, and continues fighting this feeling. She’s been to many doctor’s appointments.

That’s our life now. Doctor’s appointments. 

She gets through blood tests, examinations, and blood pressure machines. I’m a proud daughter, but I didn’t think I had to be proud about my mom battling her sickness. I’m a little girl trapped in an adults body. I love my mommy. I have always had such a special connection with her and I felt so lost knowing it could be taken away from me, i’m still lost. 

I was only a junior in high school. 

I couldn’t help but wonder what about graduation? What about college? What about future ceremonies? When I get my first car? When I have kids? When I finally marry my boyfriend that she loves so much? What will happen then if she’s not there for any of it? 

“I hate to make this all about me but who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there’s no you?”

I didn’t know how badly it affected me when I went to my Newspaper class one day and lost it. I bottled up everything too much that I had to give in to the first person that asked me if I was ok. 

I wasn’t. I hadn’t been in so long. 

I remember bawling in my newspaper teachers office. I missed being held. Yes, I had my supportive boyfriend, but I needed someone that didn’t have to be concerned for me. 

My teacher didn’t have to care, but she did. I felt seen. I felt perfectly capsulated in her arms as I cried on her shoulder. I was so sad. I wanted to do anything but there was nothing for me to do. I enjoyed airing out everything that was happening. 

I was forced to grow up when I was as little as six years old, but I didn’t think I had to do it again at seventeen. 

It sounds so ridiculous but I knew I had to grow up when my mom told me I had to learn how to cook for myself because she was getting too old to do it herself.

I know I sound like a bratty teenage girl, but I was just a teenage girl. I would watch shows and movies of mothers cooking for their children and it pained me. My mom is so famous for her cooking and I loved it, her telling me I had to learn made me feel so disconnected. It was like cutting the umbilical cord with my own hands. 

I’m glad I know how to cook and i’m glad i’m a damn good cook, but I will forever miss being young and coming home to a warm plate. I hear my friends talk about their mother’s food and I envy them. I envy people with mothers like this. I miss when my mom was a mom. I know it’s not her fault and i’m happy to help her in any way I can, but it just sucks. 

I’m the youngest of three older sisters. I’m the baby of my family. I planned on clinging onto that title for as long as I could. My parents still call me their bebe and it means everything to me. 

For that, I still remember the time my mom told me throughout the entire process she was worried about me. She was worried about me because she said if something happened to her, I would be the one that got to spend the least time with her. 

I felt seen. I realized I wasn’t selfish for thinking the same thing the entire time. 

It’s not fair. 

I envied my sisters every day of my life. When you’re the youngest, you realize many things in life. My sisters will leave the house before me and my sisters will have spent the most time with my parents than me. 

I felt as though my mom recognized this my whole life also. I truly am her daughter.

When she told me this, she followed up by saying she now finds comfort in knowing I will be ok because i’m older now and have learned more things.

I won’t be ok. 

I will never be ok. 

– A