It Might Rain

By Pat LaPointe

It’s nearly midnight. I’m exhausted and hopeful sleep will come soon. I crawl into my mother’s bed where I had slept for several weeks. The sound of Dad’s rhythmic snoring in the next room reminds me of those same sounds I heard in my childhood. It evokes a peaceful feeling, knowing he’s OK.

As I begin to rest my head on the pillow, memories of the events of the past weeks flood my mind. Sleep will not come easily.

The phone call that changed my life nearly a month ago:

“Mom’s hurt. She’s in the hospital.”

The diagnosis: A fall, her head slamming into a dresser, caused bleeding on the brain. No telling how long it will take for the bleeding will stop.

Someone will have to stay with Dad. His dementia is too severe to have him live alone. My siblings can’t/won’t stay with him. It was left up to me to take over.

My days were filled with caring for him and as well as being at my mother’s side in the hospital.

For weeks, I Give him his insulin. Make breakfast. Call a neighbor to stay with him. Race to the hospital. Ask how Mom is doing. Very little progress each day.

Mom could not eat. She had a feeding tube. She could not breathe on her own. A machine breathed for her. She could not/would not speak.

Then a surgery to ease the bleeding. Was only successful for a few days.

I glanced at Mom, one side of her body began shaking hard enough to loosen some of the tubes and wires which kept her alive. I screamed for the nurses.

Mom had a stroke.

A week passed. Another surgery. They removed part of Mom’s skull. There was an indentation in the bandages wrapped around her head.

There was some progress. The bleeding lessened for the first time in several weeks. There was talk about what Mom would need when she leaves the hospital, hopefully in a month or so.

“Did you hear that, Mom? You’re getting better.”

No response.

For the first time I felt so relaxed that I began to nod off in the chair next to Mom’s bed.

Almost immediately sounds were coming from three of the monitors. When her heart rate increased, her blood pressure dangerously decreased. Nurses came and demand that I leave the room: “Go to the family room. The doctor will meet you there.”

I waited and waited.

I began to curse the damn clock with its loud “tick, Tick”. It reminded me of every minute I was away from Mom’s side.

The doctor arrived:” We’ve done all we can. We have tried for at least 30 minutes to get her to breathe on her own. It is likely she will have some brain damage and be on a ventilator for the rest of her life. It is up to you, you must decide. we can work on her a while longer until we get her set up with a respirator OR.....It’s up to you.

“Please keep working on her just until I get back to her room.” And for a few seconds I asked myself

“Am I killing my Mother?”

I reached Mom’s room and the doctors and nurses quickly left. The lines on the heart monitor read out were flattening. I told Mom I love her just as the monitor quit spiking and the lines went flat. Mom was gone.

Now, three days later I again try to sleep, but remember that the funeral home needs some of Mom’s IDs. I reach for mom’s purse and begin to riffle through it. I laugh as out falls a notebook and miniature dictionary followed by no less than three rain bonnets all of which were staples in Mom’s purse. She had been overprotective of her weekly hair styling, often wearing two bonnets when it began to drizzle.

Suddenly I became very sleepy and returned the items to the purse and lay it on the floor, a few feet from the bed.I was just nestling down under the covers when I heard a crinkling noise. I turn on the light and see one of the bonnets laying alone just inches from the bed.

I begin to laugh loudly. “OK, Mom I got your message. But even if it rains, I’m not using those bonnets.”

I placed the bonnet under my pillow.

The next morning all the visitors at the funeral home have one last chance to say goodbye to Mom before they leave for church. I’m last in line and take the other bonnets from my purse and place them in the casket.

“You never know, Mom, it might rain”

Pat LaPointe has recently created a community both for connecting with other women and finding “me” time: https://shareyourvoice.mn.co/,is contributing editor of the self-published anthology: “ The Woman I’ve Become: 37 Women Share Their Journeys from Toxic Relationships to Self-Empowerment”. In addition, she conducts writing workshops for women — both online and onsite. Pat’s essays and short stories have been published widely. Currently, Pat is preparing her first novel for publication in 2022.

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