It Must Be Ratings Week
*Viewer Discretion Advised*
During yesterday’s office visit we discussed all of Helen’s health issues. Near the end (no pun intended) our friend Bambi asked, “It’s with some reluctance that we bring this up, but is it time for hospice care?†To which Helen’s doctor responded that traditionally that’s something to be considered when the patient has six months to live. That, she said, does not apply to Helen.
Peter and I shopped for computer speakers while our father drove our mother home, but when I got back to my parent’s house I walked into my mother’s room and closed the door. I wanted to be alone with her.
Me: “I have a favor to ask. The kind of thing that only a mother might do for her son.â€
Helen: “Is this another one of your questions I have to brace myself for?â€
Me: “You could say that.â€
Helen: “Well?â€
Me: “I think you know how much I hate to be wrong.â€
Helen: “I think I do. I might have an idea about where that came from.â€
Me: “That’s why I usually don’t offer opinions. So I can’t be held accountable. So here’s the thing. I’m in huge bind. A while ago, sometime around the end of the summer, I told my friends that I was worried you wouldn’t last the winter.â€
Helen : “But I did, didn’t I?â€
Me: “Yes you did. And you can see my problem. Now that Dr. Bieker has given you more than six months how do think I look? Or better yes, how do you think I feel? Not only am I wrong, dead wrong if you will, but I’ve had this outpouring of sympathy from my friends because I had them convinced your end was so near.â€
Helen: “And now you want me to die so you can feel better?â€
Me: “I guess that pretty well sums it up.â€
Helen: “You know I would if I could.â€
*************
Ten minutes after our talk, long after her laugher had subsided, Helen asked, “If I did, would you feel guilty?â€
Well…would you?
Comment by La Rad — April 22, 2006 @ 6:28 pm
No.
How was your time away?
Comment by Michael — April 22, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
I don’t see why you bothered to beg, Michael. I mean, the winter is over; you’re wrong … but not “dead” wrong.
Comment by Jennifer — April 22, 2006 @ 7:42 pm
Fun but it went by too fast. Guilt is overrated so I’m glad you wouldn’t feel guilty. But you may want to stop asking your mother things that make her brace herself.
Comment by La Rad — April 22, 2006 @ 7:50 pm
But it would be so out of character for me.
Heading home Sunday.
Comment by michael — April 22, 2006 @ 10:34 pm
One can but hope that with erstwhile thin-ice-over-deep-water such as this merrily shattered and swum in, that all manner of son-to-mother thought and emotion has also been equally freely expressed. What a gift to be able to face such truths, to speak of them, to know each other’s grappling will be honored. And humor found, at no detriment to that honor. I know this week has been anything but a lark, but you’re both inspirations to us all … !
Comment by adam — April 23, 2006 @ 6:06 pm
Yes, considering that he has had none of the prerequisites of a writer—neither an unhappy childhood, nor deprivations due to color, caste or gender, nor wartime scarring, nor tragically lost loves—Michael makes do with what he’s got and reports with outrageous flair all the goings-on about him. An honest rapporteur of the local hidden deeps and the neighborhood humorous humdrum.
Comment by rakkity — April 23, 2006 @ 9:38 pm