Flight of an Angel
Sevgi Zubeyde Gurbuz
MotherVerse Magazine, Issue #8, 2008
MotherVerse Magazine, Issue #8, 2008
My hand trembled and I could feel my blood gush into my head as I pushed aside the cream-colored, opaque glass door that opened into my mother's room in the Intensive Care Unit of Stanford Hospital. I was desperate to see her, but had no idea of what I was going to face. Over the telephone, her doctors had sounded pretty pessimistic. Matter-of-factly they explained to me that she had experienced a severe seizure in the left side of her brain, and that she was paralyzed in the right side of her body, unable to speak or perhaps even comprehend language. But nothing they said could have prepared me for this moment." Are you sure this is my mom?" I asked the attending nurse, puzzled. I didn't recognize the lady lying on the bed in front of me, but the nurse nodded in affirmation so I stepped closer to take another look. Peering beyond the tiny taped tubes leading to the nose and mouth, I saw my mom's carefully plucked black eyebrows and distinctive light brown mole just above the left side of her upper lip.
"Mom! Mom! Oh, my God, Mom!"
I cried out to her in tears, trying to pull her out of the darkness, but all I heard was the rhythmic, lonely, mechanical beep of her heart monitor. Her present state of fragility and weakness clashed with her lifelong legacy of stamina and strength. My mom was the castle no one could conquer, the skyscraper no earthquake could topple, the bulwark on which I could always rely. I loved her not because she was sweet or "cool," but because she was tough and pushed me to be the young woman she knew I could become.
I was totally messed up during elementary school. I hated doing homework; no, I refused to do homework, and was satisfied with just scraping by with "C"s. Watching cartoons for hours on TV was infinitely more fun than doing arithmetic. My parent's divorce had made me rebellious against authority and I lashed out against those who cared for me the most. When my aunt came to pick me up from school, I'd turn around and walk the other way. I'd go to my friend's house without even bothering to let my family know where I was. I wasn't trying to be bad – I just wanted to see if anyone would notice that I wasn't around.
My school guidance counselor told my mom that she thought my problems were because I didn't feel wanted due to the divorce. That day when I came home from school, my mom hugged me so tight, I knew that somehow everything was going to be alright. "You are mine forever, I will never let them take you away," she said.
We went through a lot of difficult times, but we always pulled through since we stuck together. Our relationship was based on complete honesty and openness. I remember when I was in 4th grade I told my mom a blatant lie. I had gone swimming with a friend without first asking for permission. When I got home, my mom saw my wet bag of clothes and directly asked me, "Did you go swimming with Sarah?" I shook my head in denial, afraid of getting in trouble.
I was expecting her to yell at me, or ground me, or something; but instead, she just knelt down on her knees, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "I promise that as long as you tell me the truth, even if you've done something bad, I will never get angry at you. But if you ever lie to me, nothing will spare you from my fury. Now, did you, or did you not go swimming with Sarah?"
My mom stayed true to her words, and I stayed true to mine. It became the basis for a very deep relationship where we knew that we were there for each other, no matter what. Even once I grew up and moved away, we still talked on the phone every day, sometimes for hours, and always shared our ideas, opinions and problems with each other.
She wasn't just my mom, but my best friend too. We did almost everything together: watch movies, play tennis, even video games. Sometimes we'd make a huge ball out of rolled up socks, and play soccer inside the house, chasing after each other dodging the blue swan-patterned sofa and oak dining table.
But all that fun wasn't for free. Keeping good grades was a prerequisite to just about everything, and my mom spent many hours of her evening teaching me how to solve hard math problems, helping me research a science project or do my English homework. I'll be honest – at first, my mom did much of the work. But once I tasted the pride in getting a few good grades and actually understanding what my teacher was talking about in class, I became a lot more motivated and began to willingly study and do homework. Plus, my mom had thrown out the television, so what else was I to do at home other than read books and do homework?
I know; it's a miracle. My mom actually turned a cartoon-crazy fan of Transformers and He-Man into a book worm that couldn't get enough of Victor Hugo or Leo Tolstoy. I actually enjoyed doing a 7thgrade science report on aneurysms so much that I began to dream of being a doctor, in particular a neurologist or brain surgeon.
Still, I couldn't help but ask my mom one day, "Why do you keep pushing me all the time? Why do I always have to get an A, why isn't a B good enough? Why can't you just let me be normal?"
I didn't understand her answer back then. She would say, "I have to make sure you can take care of yourself before I die someday." Yes, this was her explanation for having me enroll in summer school so that I could graduate high school in three years, rather than four. She thought that if she could at least put me through college, then if she passed away at least she would go without worrying about me. Of course, she also dreamt of seeing me happily married and having her grandchildren, but the first was an absolute requirement. Since she had no way of knowing when her time would be, the only thing to do was motivate me to finish up as quickly as possible. Hence, the gift of three college text books on my 15th birthday: freshman year biology, chemistry and physics. A world without her, however, was impossible to imagine. Simply dreaming of her death would make me to wake up crying. But I'd always be able to run to her bedroom, snuggle up beside her, and place my head in her bosom, reassuring myself that she was still here. Now, I was living the nightmare.
"Have you been able to figure out what's wrong yet?" I asked the neurologist. For several days now, doctors had been doing a variety of tests, trying to figure out the underlying cause of the seizures.
"Well, as you know, we've been having a lot of debate among ourselves as to exactly what it was that caused the seizures and hemorrhaging, that was what all the tests were for. But I think we are pretty certain now that what she has is not a mere infection, but in fact a cancerous brain tumor – sarcoma. Apparently it started in the sinuses and advanced along the bones into the left side of the brain," explained the neurologist.
That ominous word, "cancer," resonated in my mind. I knew then that my mom would probably never come back to me, that I'd probably never again hear the soothing sweetness of her voice, or watch her sort shapes with her one-year old grandson. In a daze, I pondered all the things we'd dreamt of doing, but wouldn't anymore.
"But she had an MRI taken just a month ago, and nothing showed up then."
"I've taken a look at the old MRI, and it does look basically normal, as you say, except for some fuzziness around the sinuses. MRIs don't image bone very well. It may have shown up on a CAT scan, had that test been made; but part of the reason also is that the tumor is a very aggressive cancerous tumor and it's grown tremendously over the last month."
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I struggled to keep myself together. For days now I had been talking to my mom, trying to encourage her to fight whatever it was that had caused this, promising to do everything I could to save her. How ironic, I thought. As a kid I'd dreamed of being a brain surgeon, and if I had become one, I might have figured out her sickness months ago when she first began having headaches, double vision, and nausea. I had even checked off biology as the major I was interested in when applying to college. It was only after an engineering internship my freshman year, that I changed my mind and majored in electrical engineering instead. It's funny, how life works out.
"Is it operable?" I asked.
"We can operate, and with chemo and radio therapy its growth can be slowed, perhaps giving her as much as a year. But really the question here is whether her condition will improve after such an operation. We had a seizure specialist in here to give his opinion as to whether it was the tumor that was suppressing her responsiveness, but his opinion is that it's permanent damage."
"So even if we operated, she will never talk or even understand language? She will still be paralyzed?"
The doctor nodded sympathetically, "We never know for sure, but the left side which controls language functions is severely damaged."
"She wouldn't want to live this way," I whispered.
I knew what I had to do, the problem was fighting my need to keep her with me, and letting go, so that she could be freed from this body that was now more like a prison than anything else.
"The best way of dying is to pass away in your sleep. That's how I'd want to go," she told me once. "I don't want to be a burden to myself or my family."
That's how she was. She was always more concerned with my well-being than with her own. Just a week ago, my mom called me just to ask one simple question: "Are you happy?"
I was surprised by the question, why would she ask me a question like this right out of the blue, I'd thought. "Sure, I'm happy," I said.
"No, really, I just need to hear it from you. Are you satisfied with your life, do you love your husband, are you happy?"
"Yes, I am. I have a great life, and a wonderful husband. I wouldn't trade them for anything," I said, in a more emphatic, cheerful tone.
I think she knew then that she was dying. But in her last days, all that she cared about was making sure that I was alright, that she was leaving me with a good life so that she could pass on without any worries.
She was my soul mate, my selfless, sacrificing guardian angel. She loved me more than anything in the world and her grandson even more than that. I am happy to say that she did wake up before passing away to see her grandson again for one last time, and that I was able to be by her side when she took her last breath.
I am so blessed to be her daughter, always and forever. I only hope that I can be as good a mother to my son, so that one day he may say the same about me.
"Mom! Mom! Oh, my God, Mom!"
I cried out to her in tears, trying to pull her out of the darkness, but all I heard was the rhythmic, lonely, mechanical beep of her heart monitor. Her present state of fragility and weakness clashed with her lifelong legacy of stamina and strength. My mom was the castle no one could conquer, the skyscraper no earthquake could topple, the bulwark on which I could always rely. I loved her not because she was sweet or "cool," but because she was tough and pushed me to be the young woman she knew I could become.
I was totally messed up during elementary school. I hated doing homework; no, I refused to do homework, and was satisfied with just scraping by with "C"s. Watching cartoons for hours on TV was infinitely more fun than doing arithmetic. My parent's divorce had made me rebellious against authority and I lashed out against those who cared for me the most. When my aunt came to pick me up from school, I'd turn around and walk the other way. I'd go to my friend's house without even bothering to let my family know where I was. I wasn't trying to be bad – I just wanted to see if anyone would notice that I wasn't around.
My school guidance counselor told my mom that she thought my problems were because I didn't feel wanted due to the divorce. That day when I came home from school, my mom hugged me so tight, I knew that somehow everything was going to be alright. "You are mine forever, I will never let them take you away," she said.
We went through a lot of difficult times, but we always pulled through since we stuck together. Our relationship was based on complete honesty and openness. I remember when I was in 4th grade I told my mom a blatant lie. I had gone swimming with a friend without first asking for permission. When I got home, my mom saw my wet bag of clothes and directly asked me, "Did you go swimming with Sarah?" I shook my head in denial, afraid of getting in trouble.
I was expecting her to yell at me, or ground me, or something; but instead, she just knelt down on her knees, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "I promise that as long as you tell me the truth, even if you've done something bad, I will never get angry at you. But if you ever lie to me, nothing will spare you from my fury. Now, did you, or did you not go swimming with Sarah?"
My mom stayed true to her words, and I stayed true to mine. It became the basis for a very deep relationship where we knew that we were there for each other, no matter what. Even once I grew up and moved away, we still talked on the phone every day, sometimes for hours, and always shared our ideas, opinions and problems with each other.
She wasn't just my mom, but my best friend too. We did almost everything together: watch movies, play tennis, even video games. Sometimes we'd make a huge ball out of rolled up socks, and play soccer inside the house, chasing after each other dodging the blue swan-patterned sofa and oak dining table.
But all that fun wasn't for free. Keeping good grades was a prerequisite to just about everything, and my mom spent many hours of her evening teaching me how to solve hard math problems, helping me research a science project or do my English homework. I'll be honest – at first, my mom did much of the work. But once I tasted the pride in getting a few good grades and actually understanding what my teacher was talking about in class, I became a lot more motivated and began to willingly study and do homework. Plus, my mom had thrown out the television, so what else was I to do at home other than read books and do homework?
I know; it's a miracle. My mom actually turned a cartoon-crazy fan of Transformers and He-Man into a book worm that couldn't get enough of Victor Hugo or Leo Tolstoy. I actually enjoyed doing a 7thgrade science report on aneurysms so much that I began to dream of being a doctor, in particular a neurologist or brain surgeon.
Still, I couldn't help but ask my mom one day, "Why do you keep pushing me all the time? Why do I always have to get an A, why isn't a B good enough? Why can't you just let me be normal?"
I didn't understand her answer back then. She would say, "I have to make sure you can take care of yourself before I die someday." Yes, this was her explanation for having me enroll in summer school so that I could graduate high school in three years, rather than four. She thought that if she could at least put me through college, then if she passed away at least she would go without worrying about me. Of course, she also dreamt of seeing me happily married and having her grandchildren, but the first was an absolute requirement. Since she had no way of knowing when her time would be, the only thing to do was motivate me to finish up as quickly as possible. Hence, the gift of three college text books on my 15th birthday: freshman year biology, chemistry and physics. A world without her, however, was impossible to imagine. Simply dreaming of her death would make me to wake up crying. But I'd always be able to run to her bedroom, snuggle up beside her, and place my head in her bosom, reassuring myself that she was still here. Now, I was living the nightmare.
"Have you been able to figure out what's wrong yet?" I asked the neurologist. For several days now, doctors had been doing a variety of tests, trying to figure out the underlying cause of the seizures.
"Well, as you know, we've been having a lot of debate among ourselves as to exactly what it was that caused the seizures and hemorrhaging, that was what all the tests were for. But I think we are pretty certain now that what she has is not a mere infection, but in fact a cancerous brain tumor – sarcoma. Apparently it started in the sinuses and advanced along the bones into the left side of the brain," explained the neurologist.
That ominous word, "cancer," resonated in my mind. I knew then that my mom would probably never come back to me, that I'd probably never again hear the soothing sweetness of her voice, or watch her sort shapes with her one-year old grandson. In a daze, I pondered all the things we'd dreamt of doing, but wouldn't anymore.
"But she had an MRI taken just a month ago, and nothing showed up then."
"I've taken a look at the old MRI, and it does look basically normal, as you say, except for some fuzziness around the sinuses. MRIs don't image bone very well. It may have shown up on a CAT scan, had that test been made; but part of the reason also is that the tumor is a very aggressive cancerous tumor and it's grown tremendously over the last month."
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I struggled to keep myself together. For days now I had been talking to my mom, trying to encourage her to fight whatever it was that had caused this, promising to do everything I could to save her. How ironic, I thought. As a kid I'd dreamed of being a brain surgeon, and if I had become one, I might have figured out her sickness months ago when she first began having headaches, double vision, and nausea. I had even checked off biology as the major I was interested in when applying to college. It was only after an engineering internship my freshman year, that I changed my mind and majored in electrical engineering instead. It's funny, how life works out.
"Is it operable?" I asked.
"We can operate, and with chemo and radio therapy its growth can be slowed, perhaps giving her as much as a year. But really the question here is whether her condition will improve after such an operation. We had a seizure specialist in here to give his opinion as to whether it was the tumor that was suppressing her responsiveness, but his opinion is that it's permanent damage."
"So even if we operated, she will never talk or even understand language? She will still be paralyzed?"
The doctor nodded sympathetically, "We never know for sure, but the left side which controls language functions is severely damaged."
"She wouldn't want to live this way," I whispered.
I knew what I had to do, the problem was fighting my need to keep her with me, and letting go, so that she could be freed from this body that was now more like a prison than anything else.
"The best way of dying is to pass away in your sleep. That's how I'd want to go," she told me once. "I don't want to be a burden to myself or my family."
That's how she was. She was always more concerned with my well-being than with her own. Just a week ago, my mom called me just to ask one simple question: "Are you happy?"
I was surprised by the question, why would she ask me a question like this right out of the blue, I'd thought. "Sure, I'm happy," I said.
"No, really, I just need to hear it from you. Are you satisfied with your life, do you love your husband, are you happy?"
"Yes, I am. I have a great life, and a wonderful husband. I wouldn't trade them for anything," I said, in a more emphatic, cheerful tone.
I think she knew then that she was dying. But in her last days, all that she cared about was making sure that I was alright, that she was leaving me with a good life so that she could pass on without any worries.
She was my soul mate, my selfless, sacrificing guardian angel. She loved me more than anything in the world and her grandson even more than that. I am happy to say that she did wake up before passing away to see her grandson again for one last time, and that I was able to be by her side when she took her last breath.
I am so blessed to be her daughter, always and forever. I only hope that I can be as good a mother to my son, so that one day he may say the same about me.
