would always crack jokes to make us laugh if we had a bad day.
“Don’t worry about Mrs. Warson ,” she would smile. “She’s just grumpy because she’s getting up there in years. If she says something rude in class, just smile politely at her. Show her the teeth she wishes she still had.”
Every night, without fail, Dad would bring up one of his conspiracy theories. Things like UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. “You heard about the government’s Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment back in 1930 and up until the seventies, right? Well, I know for a fact the government is conducting its own experimental testing of viruses and bacteria on hospital patients who are under anesthesia, all to develop methods of biological warfare. It’s happening here in the present and they’re not just testing things on black people now. Anyone’s fair game.”
My mom, my brother and I, would groan or joke that his obsession with conspiracies had come from living too long in a trailer park. Sometimes he would get fervent about the conspiracies or really irritated that we didn’t take him seriously. My mom would then say that he’d better go take his blood pressure medicine and calm down. He’d saunter into the bathroom to take the pills he kept in the cabinet. I later found out those pills weren’t for his high blood pressure. They were for his sickness, the delusions and suspicions that were plaguing him. My mother knew all along.
For the first time in my life, when I witnessed Dad’s behavior after Mom was rushed to the hospital, I’d seen my dad for who he really was. I, who believed so strongly in not being superficial, saw that my life, my family, had been a sham.
What happened to Mom?
Did Dad hurt her?
What do we have now? Who do we have now?
I asked myself those questions as we drove to Duncan, our neighboring city, where my mother was taken. We ran into the hospital. We’d been running for hours, it seemed. We reached the hallway adjacent to the emergency room.
“Mama?” I whispered. I latched on to my brother’s arm. I could hear my pulse in my ears as my mother was swarmed by nurses and doctors.
“Are you her family members?” A doctor asked. “We’re going to have to take her into surgery,” the doctor continued. “She’s had a heart attack and the EBCT scan showed a very blocked artery. She’s probably had heart disease for some time now. We’re going to do the best we can to stent that artery before the damage to the heart muscle is irreparable.”
I watched as the quiet shell of my mother was wheeled away, her body snaked with tubes from her arms, her chest, her mouth and nose. Manny and I only got a chance to brush a hand along her arm as she was whisked past. I felt something I didn’t think I’d feel: anger. My brother and I didn’t deserve this. My father was not my father. He was a stranger to me. My mother had lied to us and now at the age of 41 she could die and leave me with no answers, when I needed her the most, to see me off to college, to make us dinner and to love us, to help me when I get married and have children, to cheer us up when we were down, when I was falling. I was falling and darkness fell over the hospital room.
When I woke up I was sitting in the hallway on the cold tile floor of the hospital, my back leaning against Manny and his arms around me. When I turned to look at him, he began to sob. “Don’t ever faint on me like that again! I can’t lose you too,” he sniffled. “She’s gone, Elaine.” When I heard him say those words I couldn’t cry. I hated myself for ever being angry with my mother in her last moments. I didn’t deserve to let any of the pain go by allowing myself to shed any tears.
Marna Elaine Roberts
A Mother, a Wife, an Angel
November 9, 1967 - June 3, 2010
Manny and I never discussed it; the falsehood of our family. We both knew our mom was dead and our dad was
“Don’t worry about Mrs. Warson ,” she would smile. “She’s just grumpy because she’s getting up there in years. If she says something rude in class, just smile politely at her. Show her the teeth she wishes she still had.”
Every night, without fail, Dad would bring up one of his conspiracy theories. Things like UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. “You heard about the government’s Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment back in 1930 and up until the seventies, right? Well, I know for a fact the government is conducting its own experimental testing of viruses and bacteria on hospital patients who are under anesthesia, all to develop methods of biological warfare. It’s happening here in the present and they’re not just testing things on black people now. Anyone’s fair game.”
My mom, my brother and I, would groan or joke that his obsession with conspiracies had come from living too long in a trailer park. Sometimes he would get fervent about the conspiracies or really irritated that we didn’t take him seriously. My mom would then say that he’d better go take his blood pressure medicine and calm down. He’d saunter into the bathroom to take the pills he kept in the cabinet. I later found out those pills weren’t for his high blood pressure. They were for his sickness, the delusions and suspicions that were plaguing him. My mother knew all along.
For the first time in my life, when I witnessed Dad’s behavior after Mom was rushed to the hospital, I’d seen my dad for who he really was. I, who believed so strongly in not being superficial, saw that my life, my family, had been a sham.
What happened to Mom?
Did Dad hurt her?
What do we have now? Who do we have now?
I asked myself those questions as we drove to Duncan, our neighboring city, where my mother was taken. We ran into the hospital. We’d been running for hours, it seemed. We reached the hallway adjacent to the emergency room.
“Mama?” I whispered. I latched on to my brother’s arm. I could hear my pulse in my ears as my mother was swarmed by nurses and doctors.
“Are you her family members?” A doctor asked. “We’re going to have to take her into surgery,” the doctor continued. “She’s had a heart attack and the EBCT scan showed a very blocked artery. She’s probably had heart disease for some time now. We’re going to do the best we can to stent that artery before the damage to the heart muscle is irreparable.”
I watched as the quiet shell of my mother was wheeled away, her body snaked with tubes from her arms, her chest, her mouth and nose. Manny and I only got a chance to brush a hand along her arm as she was whisked past. I felt something I didn’t think I’d feel: anger. My brother and I didn’t deserve this. My father was not my father. He was a stranger to me. My mother had lied to us and now at the age of 41 she could die and leave me with no answers, when I needed her the most, to see me off to college, to make us dinner and to love us, to help me when I get married and have children, to cheer us up when we were down, when I was falling. I was falling and darkness fell over the hospital room.
When I woke up I was sitting in the hallway on the cold tile floor of the hospital, my back leaning against Manny and his arms around me. When I turned to look at him, he began to sob. “Don’t ever faint on me like that again! I can’t lose you too,” he sniffled. “She’s gone, Elaine.” When I heard him say those words I couldn’t cry. I hated myself for ever being angry with my mother in her last moments. I didn’t deserve to let any of the pain go by allowing myself to shed any tears.
Marna Elaine Roberts
A Mother, a Wife, an Angel
November 9, 1967 - June 3, 2010
Manny and I never discussed it; the falsehood of our family. We both knew our mom was dead and our dad was
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