Personal Narrative: My Mother's Death

I wait at the door. I put on my solemn, grim face, I cannot let these children see me as a soft women. I am anything but that, well I guess I am, but we all need to hide our inner emotions some how. My useless husband, Hans, mumbles, “I see the car”. We step outside, most people think Hans and I are crazy for opening our home to these two children, but every little bit of money that we can earn helps. Plus, they can help with the laundry, I think and smile.

On page 180 Gogol remembers how when his grandparents died he had not understood his parents grief and was annoyed by their rituals. When my own grandparents had died I didn’t share my parents feelings of sorrow. I had only met them once in my life and even hen for around a month. I was very young when we had met and I wasn’t that close with them. Those people from my parents home country pass on and my life remains unaffected. It is so strange how we can know someone without really knowing them and the thought that I will someday have to deal with the same emotions frightens me slightly. Gogol also goes through this as he is deeply affected by his father's death. In this day and age where we are so reliant on technology we don’t cherish life as much as we should. Nott just our own lives but others. Afterall we only miss something once it’s gone.

On February 23, 2016, I was confronted with a scare that changed my life dramatically. My Mother Colleen Micele was admitted into Bayonne Hospital due to feeling ill, however, rapidly circumstances changed for the worst. My mother was rushed to the ICU unit and her time she had left us had been decreasing by the hour. My mother developed a condition called Pulmonary Edema which is when the lungs fill with fluid. This condition had caused my mother's lungs to then collapse which lead to my mother develop Atrial Fibrillation. Matters had become extremely severe and life threatening once my mother had become Septic. The uncertainty and living second to second not knowing if my mother would make it through her illness for 5 weeks emotionally destroyed

The loss of a parent is a traumatic experience, especially when you are only 15 years old. I had everything in the world at that point, until I lost my best friend. The man I looked up to my entire life had now taken his own. My dad embodied what it meant to be the family man; if he was not at work, then he was devoting his time to his wife and kids. Almost every day was filled with a new adventure, whether it be a bike ride to the botanical gardens or a fishing trip to a picturesque lake in Michigan.

Five years ago, my mother was rushed to the hospital for an aneurysm. For the next two weeks, my family and I sat huddled around her bed in the intensive-care unit, oscillating between panic, fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion.

Her name is Erin, and her story doesn’t begin tonight. Her story actually began a week ago while she was sitting on her bed. It was her birthday and she had just turned seven. She was busy going through the contents of an old shoe box, and she was crying. In her hand, she held a photograph of her and her mother. They were in their backyard next to a rose garden, and her mother had her arms around her, holding her tightly. Erin remembered every moment of that day. How the sunlight warmed her skin, the sweet smell of honeysuckle in the air, the rhythmical buzzing of a humming bird’s wings that had flown into the yard only fleetingly right before her father had taken the picture. That day was two years ago now, and seventeen months before ovarian cancer had taken her

Mrs. Sheena a 69-year-old religious Jewish lady, admitted in internal medicine ward with abdominal pain and intestinal obstruction. She was diagnosed with breast cancer that had metastasized to the liver and bone. She was treated with a combination of anticancer drugs without response. Her family consisted of five children, four of whom were married with children and grandchildren. One of the patient's daughters, a 37-year-old single woman, had been diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. After a lumpectomy, she refused chemotherapy because of her desire to have a child. She only told her oldest brother about her illness; it was their secret. Mrs. Sheena’s mother and two of her sisters died because of breast cancer.

That’s where our story begins, with Liz Edwards, who had grown up in the same town her whole life. She was blessed with a privileged life that she took for granted because she never knew true struggle. Her parents were both successful doctors with lucrative practices. One day her parents come to her and said that they

The words shot out of her mouth while she cried. “I have breast cancer,” my mother announced while in the arms of my father. As evolutionary principles describe, we fear the unknown, and to my family, this diagnosis presented an unknown. Remembering that my best friend’s mother passed away from this disease, I felt my world turn upside down. My mom was in shock, my dad was scared. A couple of days later, the physician contacted her. To our surprise, he was not discussing treatment options. Instead, he apologized profusely, and told my mom that she had been misdiagnosed. Her results indicated a false positive. Until then, my perception of medicine had been strictly scientific, but my mother’s psychological state in that moment rattled my

The summer of 2015 brought many memorable events for me including celebrating my sweet sixteenth birthday and passing my drivers test. However, my mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer and her journey fighting that awful disease was the event that most marked my transition from childhood to adulthood. I have a very close knit family and before my mother’s diagnosis, everyone had been very healthy. I guess I took a lot for granted including my family’s health, and I didn’t realize or consider what really was important in life. Prior to my mother’s illness I was a typical self centered teenager, not really concerned with anyone else but myself. I had always seen my mother, a full-time nurse, as a strong person who took good care of herself and her family. When I first learned that my healthy 48 year old mom had breast cancer, I was so scared. The thought of losing my mom made me feel very vulnerable. However, I soon found an inner strength and courage that I never knew I was capable of possessing.

The story of my mom telling her mother is now a story that the entire family laughs at. “She slowly got up and walked towards her car, she then drove off quickly. She apparently went to the liquor store because she came back within a few minutes with a daiquiri in hand. She comforted me, and told me everything would be okay.” Through the nine months, my mother’s life was full of doctor appointments, the purchases of several baby items, and the planning of her

I guess I will die soon like Kelly and other 18 year olds all because of the cure for our parent’s immortality. I guess everything comes with a price doesn’t it?

Every year we made the six-hour car ride to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to visit my dad’s sister. During car rides I was always the navigator, therefore I spent many hours talking to my dad, while the rest of the family slept or watched movies. I remember on more than one car ride my dad telling me that this time may be the last trip my aunt was alive for. It was always a shock to my young, innocent mind how much damage the cancer had done to my aunt since that last time we were in Indiana. From a full figured woman to the body of a skeleton. From a strong woman able to run after her youngest son to a mom using a walker, and the assistance of her daughter, to get to the sink. From talking and laughing with her older siblings to barley being bale to make it out of bed. It is hard for me to forget the memory of my dad helping his baby sister around the kitchen of her house. She could barley walk even when using a walker. My dad didn’t help her out of obligation, but out of love. A love cancer can’t steel. Cancer cannot steel my cousin’s love for their mom or my dad’s hope that she would beat the

It was a warm December night in Key West, enjoying a nice dinner with my wife Tina and friends on Duval Street. The sound of conversation, utensils clanging, and music playing, enlighted the evening, The joy was suddenly interrupted by the ringing of the phone, it was Kim, Lizz’s best friend, telling us that “Lizz is in the intensive care unit at St. Mary’s.” We ask “What the hell happened?”. The response is one that still haunts me to this day, “Lizz has brain cancer”. The ride back felt eternal, filled with every negative emotion from life’s menu.

At the age of seventy-eight, Mom developed Fibroids; non-cancerous tumors that grew in and around her womb, causing pelvic pain. Three months after undergoing a hysterectomy, on Mother’s Day morning, our mother suffered a stroke. Terrified, when I found her, at home alone, unable to speak to me, I was nervous and distraught, although Mom’s facial expression was peaceful and calm, as if she was consoling me, trying to tell me not to worry. While Vince and I followed the ambulance to the hospital, I phoned Ellen to notify her of Mom’s dire condition. She rushed home immediately and by nightfall, Evie had her two daughters by her bedside.