damn meals I ever had, whenever my roommate was PR or Dominican or some other kind of Spanish dude. Or, come to think of it, an Orthodox Jewâthen all kinds of stuff from the deli showed up. A feast. Hereâs Richieâs free advice to all: if youâre going to be in a hospital for a while, claim you need to eat kosher. They canât manage that in the institutional kitchen, so they order out. Brisket, bialys, corned beef on rye, noodle pudding, all of that.)
But here itâs a whole different story. No rules about visiting hours and limiting the invaders. Here, as they like to remind everyone, theyâre âtreating the whole family.â Great, so itâs, like, mad crowded in some rooms, and even at midnight there are people parked all over the place, bored and impatient and stressed and total pains in the ass. Nonstop. Like living in the subway. It stinks.
Okay, back to topic: my mom, the story, short version. Whenever Iâm in the hospital, my mom comes in on her lunch hour and late every night and she sleeps in my room on the fold-out or cot or whatever she can round up. I mean, sheâs kept up this routine, on and off, since I was eleven and started hanging out, way too much, in hospitals. Some of those stays were, like, months and months. Some just days. But sheâs always been right there, curled up on some lousy cot, all night, every night. Sheâs got to keep working, so she canât hang around with me all day. My mom had me when she was my age exactlyâseventeen. And there were only us two, and she worked two jobsâwhatever she could get, and luckily sheâs good with numbers and can keep books and stuff like that, but sometimes it was just cashiering in Price Chopper. She worked her butt off, always, and she kept us in health insurance totally on her own.
But my mom took a leave of absence from both jobs just recently, when the word terminal kept popping up on my charts and when, finally, the word hospice became part of my permanent temporary address. My mom, who never even got to sit her butt down and rest on Sunday all of my life, my mom took leave. My mom took what her prick of a boss calls compassionate leave: as in, no paychecks. I mean, how fucking compassionate is that? But she says she doesnât care about that. What matters is that sheâs been with me day and night now. And I swear she looks sicker than me, and she shakes and cries and has to go out for a smoke every half hour. At night, when she comes back in, I let her kiss me good night like Iâm two years old, and then she falls asleep and I look at her curled up on that crappy couch, her cheeks all sunk in and her eyes all puffy, and I think Iâm going to lose it. And sometimes I do, the only fucking time the sadness comes through and I want to kill anybody who hurts her and, yes, Iâm aware that nobody else on earth could hurt her like Iâm doing right now. And thatâs the worst of all. Thatâs SUTHY with a vengeance. It just sucks, all of it.
***
Deep breath here. Let it go, Richard. Deal. Three more deep breaths. Count backward from one hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven. Ninety-six. Ninety-five. Ninety-four. Ninety-three . . .
Okay. So, this week, I got a reprieve. My mom got the flu. Big-time fevers, hacking cough, the whole bit. Maybe some nasty kind, pending blood tests. And thatâs one thing even hospice canât allow for its visitors. Flu. Crazy, right? I mean, weâre all dying anyway, but they canât be allowed to speed up the process with a friendly push from a rogue virus. Donât even ask. None of it makes any sense, and it makes my head hurt to look for logic.
When I heard that Mom was really sick, at first I was scared. Funnily enough, I was worried about her healthâand thatâs a very strange turnaround, let me tell you. But suddenly, it hit me: I was going to have a week without parental supervision. I was
But here itâs a whole different story. No rules about visiting hours and limiting the invaders. Here, as they like to remind everyone, theyâre âtreating the whole family.â Great, so itâs, like, mad crowded in some rooms, and even at midnight there are people parked all over the place, bored and impatient and stressed and total pains in the ass. Nonstop. Like living in the subway. It stinks.
Okay, back to topic: my mom, the story, short version. Whenever Iâm in the hospital, my mom comes in on her lunch hour and late every night and she sleeps in my room on the fold-out or cot or whatever she can round up. I mean, sheâs kept up this routine, on and off, since I was eleven and started hanging out, way too much, in hospitals. Some of those stays were, like, months and months. Some just days. But sheâs always been right there, curled up on some lousy cot, all night, every night. Sheâs got to keep working, so she canât hang around with me all day. My mom had me when she was my age exactlyâseventeen. And there were only us two, and she worked two jobsâwhatever she could get, and luckily sheâs good with numbers and can keep books and stuff like that, but sometimes it was just cashiering in Price Chopper. She worked her butt off, always, and she kept us in health insurance totally on her own.
But my mom took a leave of absence from both jobs just recently, when the word terminal kept popping up on my charts and when, finally, the word hospice became part of my permanent temporary address. My mom, who never even got to sit her butt down and rest on Sunday all of my life, my mom took leave. My mom took what her prick of a boss calls compassionate leave: as in, no paychecks. I mean, how fucking compassionate is that? But she says she doesnât care about that. What matters is that sheâs been with me day and night now. And I swear she looks sicker than me, and she shakes and cries and has to go out for a smoke every half hour. At night, when she comes back in, I let her kiss me good night like Iâm two years old, and then she falls asleep and I look at her curled up on that crappy couch, her cheeks all sunk in and her eyes all puffy, and I think Iâm going to lose it. And sometimes I do, the only fucking time the sadness comes through and I want to kill anybody who hurts her and, yes, Iâm aware that nobody else on earth could hurt her like Iâm doing right now. And thatâs the worst of all. Thatâs SUTHY with a vengeance. It just sucks, all of it.
***
Deep breath here. Let it go, Richard. Deal. Three more deep breaths. Count backward from one hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven. Ninety-six. Ninety-five. Ninety-four. Ninety-three . . .
Okay. So, this week, I got a reprieve. My mom got the flu. Big-time fevers, hacking cough, the whole bit. Maybe some nasty kind, pending blood tests. And thatâs one thing even hospice canât allow for its visitors. Flu. Crazy, right? I mean, weâre all dying anyway, but they canât be allowed to speed up the process with a friendly push from a rogue virus. Donât even ask. None of it makes any sense, and it makes my head hurt to look for logic.
When I heard that Mom was really sick, at first I was scared. Funnily enough, I was worried about her healthâand thatâs a very strange turnaround, let me tell you. But suddenly, it hit me: I was going to have a week without parental supervision. I was