She turns her head slightly and looks at me.
I mean she really looks at me.
Makes eye contact.
And she sees me.
And I’m smiling and I’m crying and I want to scream with joy.
“Hi Mommy,” I say, my voice shaking through a sob, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Hi, it’s so nice to see you. I’m here, okay, I’m here. I love you and I’m here okay?”
There’s recognition in her stare, the way she’s looking at me, there’s a connection between us, mother and daughter, a connection that can never be severed. She sees me, she sees me.
I’ve never felt more loved.
“You’re okay,” I assure her, reaching down for her hand. “You’re okay. You’re in the hospital but you’re okay. Can you squeeze my hand? Can you hold my hand?”
I keep staring at her and her eyelid starts to droop a little.
“Mom!’ I say, louder than I meant to and her eye opens fully. I laugh. “I’m so sorry to yell. Stay with me mom. Hold my hand okay?”
I keep staring at her, keep smiling this shaky smile, keep squeezing her hand, and then she finally squeezes it back.
“Thank you, Mommy,” I tell her. “Thank you for doing that. I love you.”
Her hand goes limp again. Her eye closes.
“I love you,” I keep saying. “I’m here and I love you and you’re going to come home with us soon. The more you try to stay awake and come back to us, the quicker you’ll be out of here. We’re going to take you home and take care of you and there’s nothing for you to worry about, nothing to stress about, we’re going to take care of you and you’re going to be okay and—”
A sharp blaring alarming sounds from the machines by her bed, blasting my ear drums.
I drop her hand and jump back, unsure of what I did, I feel like I’m always causing some machine to beep in alarm, and that’s when I realize that this alarm is too loud, too harsh, that this is the alarm for a code blue.
“Excuse me, please get back,” the nurse says, rushing in and moving me out of the way. Suddenly everyone in the ICU is rushing into my mom’s room.
“She’s crashing!” someone yells, while yet another nurse moves me out of the way, until I’m standing at the end of the room by the curtain, and more and more people come flooding in.
The intercom comes on. “Code Blue. ICU.” And I realize it’s someone at the nurses’ station placing the call.
This call is for my mother.
This can’t be happening.
The nurses and doctors are all yelling stuff at each other that I can’t understand and then I see a male nurse start to give my mother CPR.
Suddenly strong hands grip my shoulders and pull me further back and I know it’s Wolf and he’s saying things to me, probably telling me I should leave, that I shouldn’t see this and I can’t move, I can’t speak, I can barely hear.
All I can do is stare at the group of healthcare workers trying to save my mom’s life. I watch them do CPR. All of them taking turns. They do it for at least ten minutes and I’m watching in horror because they aren’t stopping.
Why isn’t it working?
Why isn’t she being saved?
“She saw me,” I find myself telling Wolf, my eyes glued to the scene of horror unfolding in front of me. “Her eye was open and she, she saw me. She really looked at me.”
He holds me from behind, squeezing tight. “I know. I was talking to her and suddenly she opened her eye and looked at me. I was telling her…” he trails off and I hear him swallow loudly. “I was telling her that we were going to take care of her. And I promised I would always take care of you.” He lets out a shaky breath. “She opened her eye and she looked at me and I told her to stay awake, to keep her eyes open, that you were around the corner. I ran out of the room and I looked over my shoulder and I saw her trying so hard to stay awake for you.”
His last words break down a little and I feel him shudder behind me and I realize that Wolf is taking this hard and if he’s taking this hard, that means this is real.
This is really happening.
Oh my god…
…she’s dying.
The realization stabs me straight through the heart.
“No!” I scream and try to run toward my mother, but Wolf holds me back. “No, please! Save her, save her!”
But the doctors and nurses are starting to walk away, giving me looks of sympathy, of guilt, of regret as they go.
No, no, no. Stay! Stay with her, fix her, don’t let her die!
“Please!” I scream. “Please, help her! She’s my mother, I can’t live without her! Please!”