His Mother Too

It's taken me a while to write about last week's patient. Sometimes, separating the sheer gravity of what it is to be human from the what we carry with us is nearly impossible. But this I have come to understand and to rationalize: there is a lot of tragedy in the world, people die needless and senseless deaths every day. There is horrible suffering. What I have yet to process is how people carry on.

This young man was dying. Thirty years old. I hadn't seen him out of bed all week, but as I was getting ready to head to the cafeteria for lunch, out he waltzed, all six foot five inches of him, one hundred and thirty pounds, asking if it was okay for him to take a walk. "Of course," I replied, "Of course."

At his side was his mother. She hadn't left his bedside since he was admitted to our until, ten days prior. This mother had in the past ten years lost her eldest son, her daughter-in-law and grandson. As she walked away, her youngest son towering over her, I imagined him well, healthy, strong arm around her shoulder in comfort rather than for balance from his weakness. I saw her with a son on either side. Two toddlers, a young mother. I tried hard to shake that image and busied myself with another patient until they had disappeared down the hall.

Eventually I made my way to the cafeteria, maybe twenty minutes had passed. Because the walk was tiring, because they had to stop and rest, I came right up behind the two. They both turned, smiled, greeted me -- looking confused at all of the commotion in the cafeteria, and overwhelmed by the world going on around them. As I watched her guide her son slowly back down another corridor, I whispered after her, "I am a mother too." Though she didn't hear me, she turned, smiled, nodded - and as her son slowly disappeared around the corner, I saw her hands grasp the tiny hands of her two sons, one on either side, swinging them gently - smiling.