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| The Death of a Mother |
I walk into the room and cannot even recognize her face
anymore. How far we have come over the last two years. Laying there, I see a
very thin layer of skin covering her collar bone, painted with an ashen pallor. A physician's heart is crumbling. I conclude the end is very near. My desire is to leave the room. My job is to stay by her side. The smell of death is unforgettable.
I pull back the bandage and stare at her wound. There, gazing back at me is the enemy, the cancer, the "small cells" I could not
eradicate—though for two years I tried—in fact, many of us tried. Looking at the wound, I
see the pulsating beat of the major artery moving her skin up and down, up and down, surrounded by the
advancing malignancy. Her pain meds have rendered her groggy and minimally verbal, but at least she looks comfortable. She wakes up enough to ask about end points, about timing of other treatment, about whether or not I have further plans for her. I don’t honestly want to answer those questions. How do you say "I have run out of plans"? I have no other magic pills, magic bullets, magic cocktails. I can only wait. And wait for what? I just can't verbalize that, since I don't want to think about what is to come. God is totally in control of all things now—and always has been, lest I think differently. But what I do know, from where I stand, is that there is very
little time left--and that the life here before me is hanging on the edge.
