I bent down and kissed Mama on the cheek, rubbing my hand lightly across her forehead. Her thick dark curls were gone, but it was easy for both of us to imagine I was brushing them out of the way. She was mostly bald after the surgery, but we remembered the curls. After tucking Mama in bed, I walked to the other side, and climbed in next to her. Snuggling against her frail body, I told her yet again, “I love you.”
I didn’t know how many more opportunities I would have to tell her I loved her. I didn’t know how many more nights I would have her here beside me. I didn’t really know much of anything, except I didn’t want to miss a single moment with her. The doctors said she had less than six months, but I had turned several calendar pages since then. How many more days did we have? She was so much thinner, so much weaker. I knew our time was growing short.
Her breathing was soft and regular as she drifted off to sleep. I listened for those breaths, and sometimes rolled toward her, letting my arm fall over her. Then I could feel the rise and fall of her breathing, even when it was too quiet to hear. During the night, I would wake myself up, just to see if she was still with me.
Sometimes, especially at night when I was lying next to Mama, I thought about Daddy. Already my memories of him were fading. He had only been gone two years, and there were things I had forgotten. I didn’t want to forget Mama too. If I could only have them longer, I could remember so much more. Still, I reminded myself, I’m older now. At twelve, I should be able to remember more about Mama.
“Isn’t that right Linda?”
“What? I’m sorry. I was daydreaming. What was the question?”
The small bedroom and warm quilts of my dreams were relegated to the distant past once more. The bedroom I was in at the moment had wood paneling and a single hospital bed. The oxygen concentrator humming beneath the window was tethered by tubing to a tiny woman. She was sitting up in bed, thin arms wrapped around thin legs. Small tufts of hair popped up randomly at odd angles from her scalp, reminding me so much of my other favorite bald woman.
Leaning against the paneling, the chaplain smiled at me and repeated his question. “I was just telling Angela, our patient here, why we work in hospice. I said we minister out of our own pain.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Caregiving is its own reward. I’ve been a hospice nurse for a long time now. I minister out of my personal pain, and in turn, I am healed.”