i'm waiting outside the door, staring into the room through the blinds. my hand falls onto the door handle and the door glides open easily. and soon i find i am in the room, the room that holds my mother, the room that encompasses her life and her death. the room smells like my mother, not of the hospital's sterility, which surprises me. it smells of work, of sweat and of love, and i am comforted.
i am urging myself to her bedside, but i crawl there despite the aching desire i have to hold her hand. and when i get to the bedside of my dying mother, i find that i can only stare. i am trying so desperately to recognize this person lying before me. how can she be my mother? my mother who was always yelling and laughing and telling me to be careful and speaking sternly and opening my door in the middle of the night to make sure i was still there. this is not my mother. this can't be her.
but then her arm jerks, and now her fingers lay facing the ceiling-an open invitation for me to hold her hand. and i realize this is my mother, the one and only who would forgive me for everything i had ever done. i walked closer now and pulled up a chair. i sit down slowly, afraid of waking her up. and then i put my hand in hers and i caress it the way she used to when she'd take my hand and look at it and touch it and comment on how soft it was.
there i stayed. in that room. and even when i left, i stayed in that room. my last memory of my mother opening her eyes and telling me to be good will stay with me always.
