Breathing funny. (908 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.91 on 26 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by earth collapse (View user info) at 2009-03-08 17:19:51 EDT
Coughing; I remember my Mother coughing, dry heaves, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide-open, just staring, not there, a vacant stare, a dead-stare, a thousand-yard-stare, a thousand-yard-dead-stare, laying on her back, skinny, but she was always skinny, but now she was bone-skinny, dead-skinny.
I remember my Uncle making funeral arrangements, 'she wants to be cremated.' 'But she's still alive,' and "she can't die, she's my Mother, the strongest person I've ever known."
But strong people die, and death waits for no one, it comes and it doesn't matter how, it is and it comes, and her tongue is as dry as sandpaper and she can't swallow, so she's hooked up to an I.V. drip, dripping continuously to a corpse of a woman, skeletal, dying, with a thousand-yard-death-stare; 'the ceiling must be horrified,' and she's going be cremated and she's going to die but I hadn't accepted it, and close to a decade later I still haven't.
But she is dead and now she is a skeleton, just a skeleton and maybe some leathery, mostly decomposed skin in the ground in Galveston, that little island in the Gulf where I spent a few years of my childhood. Good memories there: dolphins and floating, bobbing on the waves, salt water, playgrounds, pier-shops extending out into the ocean, sea-horses and sea-walls, neon-colors and sand between my toes, in my hair - everywhere.
'She's breathing funny. Mom's breathing funny,' Mom's dying, she is dying, and 'she's gonna be cremated.' It's what she wants. She doesn't want to rot in the ground like some goddamned corpse. Yet she is a corpse, just staring up at the ceiling, her lips chapped and her mouth dry like sandpaper, pissing and shitting herself wearing diapers with an I.V, a catheter tube popping out of her skeletal chest, breathing all funny on a May afternoon in L.A.
Hey, I could see the Hollywood sign from my street. Did you know that?
My Mother died in Hollywood on a May afternoon in an apartment where you could see the Hollywood sign.
I remember it was after school, and it was hard for me to look at her, and she was breathing funny, and the pauses were getting longer and longer and I counted the seconds in-between and her eyes closed, maybe for the first time, and that's when I realized she was going to stop breathing. Thirty seconds. Forty seconds. I used to hold my breath underwater for a minute, sometimes longer, and I'd try to hold it longer and longer but I would always come up gasping for air, only to do it all over again and then again. But this wasn't a game and she wasn't going to come up gasping for air.
And then she just stopped breathing, and I swear just a moment later I could smell the death, the foul smell, and I kissed her on the cheek and I could taste it. Revolting. I wanted to puke. It was fucking nasty. I was kissing my mother and she was a corpse, but she wasn't dead, she just smelled and tasted dead. No, she couldn't die. She was too strong. Strong people don't die. They live forever. They're immortal. Like God. They may stop breathing but they don't die.
For months she lay there on her back, occasionally she would move her hand to the front of her face and she would stare at it. Some days she would smile - an almost automatic response, and other days, there would be nothing - towards the end there was nothing at all.
Some days I would question whether or not she were conscious at all, if the tumor had eaten so much of her brain that she was no longer aware of the world, or me, or even herself. I wondered if all that remained was biological process, neural response void of 'free-will.'
I questioned whether or not her soul still resided in her body. I questioned if I should even feel anything for that body, laying on its back, staring at the ceiling, sometimes her own hand, a curious awe, like a baby in a crib with a thousand-yard-dying-stare, shitting and pissing herself, coughing and breathing funny on a May afternoon after school in view of the Hollywood sign with a mouth full of sandpaper.
All tears; we were all tears, sobbing, my sister and I, holding her hand, counting the growing pauses between breaths with my Uncle watching with this look of shame, of failure, because he promised her he'd cure her, make her better, and now she was dying, and there was nothing left to be done but make funeral arrangements and wait.
Maybe he fucked up, made a mistake, missed the right opportunity, failed to research clinical trials that could have saved her life. Maybe he just wasn't good enough. He had never been good enough. He had lied to her. He had broken the promise. Now her two children were staring at a skeleton lying on it's back out in L.A., holding her hand and watching as she was dying.
He wanted to say something, but he couldn't, and he couldn't cry either, his brows just sort of hung down, all sad and stupid to what was happening. She would be cremated, they decided, it would be better that way. No rotting in the ground. She wouldn't be worm food or fertilizer. Her body would become ash, and the rest would become the wind and the atoms would float out, stretch out all over the world. She would finally visit all those places she had wanted to visit as a child, browsing through encyclopedias for the pictures. The Taj Mahal and the Forbidden City. The Great Wall of China. Stonehenge and Egypt and Mount Everest. The Hanging Gardens and Rome and cathedrals and mosques and temples and trappist monks and all that shit. She would see it all, finally.
But she wasn't cremated. They stuck her in the ground in a casket, pumped up full of formaldehyde and whatever-the-fuck-else, because she was only separated from her husband, and it turns out they can do whatever the fuck they want with the body because they're only legally separated. Without a will, she didn't have will, because I don't even think she thought she was going to die. No, she was going to beat this. She couldn't die. She hadn't accepted it just as I haven't and no one else ever will. So she fell into that stupor not even knowing that she was going to stop breathing one day with her kids and her brother around her, counting the pauses between her breaths, waiting for that last exhale and then nothing except embalmers and viewings and people gawking and crying over a corpse to be stuck in the ground in a little island in Galveston half-way across the country.
User Reviews
Submitted by Blackberry (user info) at 2009-03-11 13:17:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-03-09 16:43:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
********************
Quite true. My grandfather died and my cousin, who was raised by him and my grandmother, was devastated. It was pretty much like her father died. She wrote one last letter to him and read it at his funeral. It was the absolute saddest day of my life thus far.
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More importantly, who did their taxes?
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2009-03-11 12:52:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I want to be cremated. I want ME to be free to fly where the wind takes me.
Submitted by earth_collapse (user info) at 2009-03-10 03:01:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
She wouldn't become the wind and she wouldn't become atoms and she would always be breathing funny, a corpse with mostly decomposed skin, staring at the ceiling (of her casket), pissing and shitting herself wearing diapers, slightly-dead-but-not-all-the-way-dead, like a photograph, the way the frames live in the past but still in the present, light stuck to emulsion, the way moments sort of extend out over time like a thread; in more places than one, but really in none.
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-03-09 16:43:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-03-08 21:05:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You may have already read this, but it is worth considering.
---
A Zen master renowned for his exquisite calligraphy was summoned by the emperor to create a joyous work of art on the occasion of the emperor's birthday. Under the close scrutiny of the emperor, the master made several attempts to fulfill the request without achieving the excellence for which he was known. Disgusted and frustrated, he summoned his energy and in a burst of creativity penned with perfection the following:
Grandfather dies, Father dies, Son dies.
The emperor was outraged, and demanded an explanation of why his request for something joyous was not satisfied. The Zen master calmly explained that he had satisfied the request, because:
When these events occur in the prescribed order, there is a temporary sadness in the event but it is the natural order of life and therefore can only be joyous. In any other sequence of these events is where tragedy lies.
---
********************
Quite true. My grandfather died and my cousin, who was raised by him and my grandmother, was devastated. It was pretty much like her father died. She wrote one last letter to him and read it at his funeral. It was the absolute saddest day of my life thus far.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2009-03-09 16:23:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BranDo (user info) at 2009-03-09 15:41:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2009-03-09 11:03:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is exactly the situation my mrs went through about 10 years ago.
No one should have to bury their mother.
I hope I have to instead of she burying me...
See Skraps comment, wise as usual.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2009-03-09 12:56:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sure
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2009-03-09 12:55:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
weird capitilization
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2009-03-09 12:51:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2009-03-09 11:03:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is exactly the situation my mrs went through about 10 years ago.
No one should have to bury their mother.
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2009-03-09 10:37:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I was looking for something to bring me down on Monday.
This did the trick.
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-03-09 10:34:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So close to home...
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-03-09 10:29:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"The Hanging Gardens"
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Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but wouldn't the only way anyone or anything could see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon would be with a time machine?
Perhaps the ashes were to be entrusted to John Titor.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2009-03-09 09:18:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by evilmedley (user info) at 2009-03-09 01:10:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2009-03-08 23:41:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2009-03-08 20:13:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hope you weren't a chump like me in trying to make a deal with that cock-sucker called god
you know what i mean...good deals, deals that any spiritual being would accept in a heartbeat, like taking 10 years out of my span for 10 weeks added on to my dads...and so on
but no...so fuck him and his pretend son in both their asses
real hard, with no spit
=================
Exactly how I felt 39 years ago when my father died. Now, my mother is almost 89, and I will ask for the same deals, which will be denied. LIfe sucks sometimes.
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-03-08 23:41:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Her body would become ash, and the rest would become the wind and the atoms would float out, stretch out all over the world. She would finally visit all those places she had wanted to visit as a child, browsing through encyclopedias for the pictures. The Taj Mahal and the Forbidden City. The Great Wall of China. Stonehenge and Egypt and Mount Everest. The Hanging Gardens and Rome and cathedrals and mosques and temples and trappist monks and all that shit. She would see it all, finally.
*****************
Loved the above...exactly why I want to be cremated.
This was excellent.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-03-08 21:05:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You may have already read this, but it is worth considering.
---
A Zen master renowned for his exquisite calligraphy was summoned by the emperor to create a joyous work of art on the occasion of the emperor's birthday. Under the close scrutiny of the emperor, the master made several attempts to fulfill the request without achieving the excellence for which he was known. Disgusted and frustrated, he summoned his energy and in a burst of creativity penned with perfection the following:
Grandfather dies, Father dies, Son dies.
The emperor was outraged, and demanded an explanation of why his request for something joyous was not satisfied. The Zen master calmly explained that he had satisfied the request, because:
When these events occur in the prescribed order, there is a temporary sadness in the event but it is the natural order of life and therefore can only be joyous. In any other sequence of these events is where tragedy lies.
---
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2009-03-08 20:13:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hope you weren't a chump like me in trying to make a deal with that cock-sucker called god
you know what i mean...good deals, deals that any spiritual being would accept in a heartbeat, like taking 10 years out of my span for 10 weeks added on to my dads...and so on
but no...so fuck him and his pretend son in both their asses
real hard, with no spit
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-03-08 20:01:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Rob Berg speaks the truth below...
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Submitted by HateMudkips (user info) at 2009-03-08 20:01:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2009-03-08 19:55:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sorry for your loss.
Fuck cancer - and fuck her asshole not quite x-husband.
I hate that guy.
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-03-08 19:42:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Really, really moving.
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2009-03-08 19:30:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2009-03-08 19:07:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2009-03-08 18:34:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No comment appropriate.