There was something different about the tone in my dad's voice and the way he suggested I come visit my childhood home as soon as possible that day. I had just come back to Virginia from a long weekend at the beach in Delaware with some of my girlfriends and an impromptu visit with my aunt and grandmother, who both live there year-round. My mom spent many summers growing up there with them, so I called her the day before we left to see what restaurant we should go to. She always has the best ideas and suggestions to make an evening just the right amount of special for just the right of money for a twenty-something and her 9 friends.
At 24, I had moved back to the area from Boston after college and again, from Ecuador after a stint of teaching English and traveling for a year. I visited my parents on an every-now-and-then basis and my parents were good about allowing for a certain amount of space, so when my dad had a sense of urgency for me to visit that night, I knew I should come. Once I unloaded the car and dropped off my friends at our apartment, I headed over to see my parents. The twenty minutes in the car at that point were a complete blur, but the conversation that followed and the feelings that were felt afterwards have stayed with me and I'm sure they'll be that way forever.
When I came home, I noticed that my mom wasn't there, which was an important first clue that something unfortunate had happened. I sat down with my dad in the living room and in the clearest terms, my dad tried to explain what had happened in the middle of the night. My mom was taken to the Emergency Room and subsequently the ICU at a local hospital. This was the hospital that she, in fact, had worked at for most of her life.
At that point, all that we knew was that she was having trouble breathing and that she was on a breathing machine to support her lung power. They had identified pulmonary emboli, her blood sugars were at an astronomical level and they had found a tumor in her stomach that would need to be examined more closely. Each of these three items separate was cause for major concern and together, they were a life-threatening mix.
This would be a shock for anyone. There were so many things running through my head. My mom is relatively young, she had me at a young age so the thought of her body failing her like this was incomprehensible. I had just talked to her less than 24 hours before and everything was "normal". How had I ended the conversation? Did we even say "I love you"? I guess the thing that shocked me most was that in my mom's almost 20 years of working at the hospital and for various organizational offices that supported it, she rarely took a sick day or even a vacation day for that matter. She is the type of person who was loyal to her job and was strong enough to never need a sick day. I think I had seen her sick maybe 3 times in my life total, and most of those instances were the common cold that went away in a few days. My mom, like most mothers, was the type of person growing up that was the glue that held the family together.
This was the beginning of a whole new chapter in our family. You don't ever forget the exact details of a night like that. The next morning I would wake up and go to the hospital to see her for myself. Visiting hours had been over and I needed rest for the day ahead.
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