A ROUGH WEEKEND

It was a difficult weekend for my family. I could see it in their faces, hear it in their tone. This is the week, six years ago, that my mother died. As we spent Sunday together, I could feel each person, my Dad, my brothers, my sister, even my husband going through his own personal history of her last days with us. The phone calls, the drive for us from Erie, the hospitals. In one, in Brooklyn, my Dad had practiced as a general surgeon his entire career. After my residency, I even worked there, first assisting on bigger cases, and fulfilled a dream my Mom always had for me – operating with my father. It was the last place my children, then just two and three years old, would see my mother alive.

The hospital where she was transferred next was a big Heart Hospital on the North Shore of Long Island. Here they were equipped to do everything, which is of course what we wanted them to do, since none of us were ready to say goodbye. My Dad and I, well trained that surgery can save, let them cath her, let them crack her chest, let them try for hours to patch the shredded fibers of her heart. Then she died. Nothing will ever be as painful.

My youngest brother, 36, had a pacemaker placed yesterday. The cardiologist came out of the procedure and told him in a heavy Indian accent, “Both your nodes are dead! Boat of dem!” I think he knew this, my brother. He’s had vague complaints since my Mom passed. Trouble sleeping, chronic fatigue, pains in his shoulder, palpitations. He was visiting her grave a year and four months later and took a day off from work to rest, still tired all the time. The next morning, running late for work, his subway stopped working a distance away from his office. When he got to the surface, he was carried by a wave of people coursing North. He turned to see his office building crumble to the ground.

Nothing will ever be as painful. I’m sure I thought this when Dr. Abu-Rustum gave me a date for my surgery, and I’m sure my brother thought about this when he scheduled his electro-physiologic studies/pacemaker placement. It’s a rough week for my family, anyway. And May 5th is the day my mother died. In the Catholic Church, saints’ feast days are celebrated on the day they died. I always believe that things happen for a reason. I remember explaining to my children how my mother died. I told them that her heart broke a little each time her children moved away. And that she died so she could be with all of us at once, no matter where we were.