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"Time," The doctor stated, "All it will take is time".
I closed my eyes. The world was spinning, everything a blur, nothing stable.
I grasped the nearest table. Gravity didn't exist anymore. I was falling,
falling.
"How much time?", My father squeaked, the way this sensitive
man always did when he held back his tears. His voice got louder, louder
and finally reality was there and my eyes slowly opened.
"Five months at least", Doctor Forner informed us. He added
assuredly, "But she will get better." My father had always loved
Doctor Forner, straight to the point whenever anyone from our family had
come to the hospital. When Greg stuck my mother's pearl earring up his
nose, when Patti broke her arm in baseball, and now when my mother was
thrown 20 feet off a horse. All he was saying now was gibberish.
"In one leg a tendon has been ripped, the other leg is broken in
two parts. She took a pretty hard fall on her back and neck, so I'd advise
you to keep her in bed. She'll also have to wear a neck brace and stay
in a wheelchair for a few months. Her left wrist is also broken in five
places. Just make sure when you take her home she is treated with the
best of care", the doctor babbled on.
"Would she be treated any other way?" I asked rudely.
"No, Theresa, I guess she wouldn't", Doctor Forner talked to
me as if I was an old, old lady with the loss of hearing, and he had to
pronounce every word for me.
Everyone was silent. Patti yanked on her long hair and glanced anxiously
around the waiting room. I knew she wanted to run through the grass outside,
as fast as her athletic legs could carry her. It was a great way to release
stress. My father sat in a chair, jiggling his leg and playing with the
keys inside his pocket. Their jingling noise echoed down the cold, sterile
hallway.
"Can we see her?" Greg blurted out. Good ol' Greg. He always
broke the silence. Even when he grew up and went off into the world on
his own, he was an eager puppy waiting for his walk on the earth. I remember
when I was six, I would always wake up in the middle of the night to the
sound of my searching parents rummaging through pots and pans, looking
for their curious baby boy. Every night it would be a new place; in the
cupboards, curtains, trash bins, closets, under all our beds looking for
some unknown treasures; always laughing when we found him.
"Sure you can", Forner replied, "Just follow me down the
hall..." We all stood up slowly, looked at each other, and took a
few steps to catch up with our doctor. Our footsteps echoed and bounced
off the walls. My father took my hand and held Patti's with the other.
Greg ran up ahead, asking the doctor questions. The accident kept playing
over and over in my mind. The way she flew through the air and the way
the ground shook when her back hit it with full force. I shuddered.
"Here's the room...she just woke up so you'll have a lot of time
with her", Doctor Forner said and Greg flung open the door before
a peep could escape from our mouths. And there was our mother, sitting
calmly, humming to herself. She looked older than usual. She looked ancient.
She looked battered and torn. But most of all, she looked defeated. She
never looked defeated. She smiled lightly when she saw us and held out
her yellow-blue bruised arms which Patti ran right into. My father embraced
them both in his big, strong arms. Greg was staring at them with awe.
"You're alive", Greg stated bluntly, still staring with amazement
at my mother. She laughed and he walked over to her slowly and gave her
a quick hug.
"Of course she's
alive, what did you expect?", It was a rhetorical question I had
asked, but I did wonder what he would've said. The strangest thing was,
I had thought the same thing. As soon as she hit the ground I thought
she was dead, that she would be gone forever. So many things that I had
never told her, about how I appreciated her, would never come out of my
mouth if she was dead. But now that she wasn't, I was speechless.
I had always been a negative person, no matter how positive everyone else
was in my family. I could point out all the consequences to everything,
not that that was a bad trait, but I did it so much that friends left
me and family members started to dislike me. My grandmother was the only
person who fully understood me. She was a full-blown pessimist who never
stopped to enjoy her life. I always thought she had been born this way,
but her pessimism had come with life experience. I remember her telling
me once when I was five years old and she found me digging up her beloved
rose bushes in the front yard, "Life has it's consequences, and they
usually come from people who have lost their trust in you. But just remember,
no matter who you hurt in life, you'll hurt yourself the most", I
had looked down and seen that the rose bushes had pricked my fingers and
blood was trickling down my arms. She had grabbed me and pulled me close.
"Consequences happen with every decision you make in life, be sure
you choose the right one". And that was it. She hadn't punished me,
just left me with those words. I felt so guilty - even though I had no
idea what consequences meant - that I replanted the flowers. They died
the next morning.
My grandmother was an interesting person. She was mysterious, and unique.
I never quite figured out what had happened in her past because whenever
I asked her straightforward she'd reply, "That's none of your damn
business." It was my mother who told me the most about her life.
She (my mother) had gone through the same struggle trying to find out
who, what, when, and how she came to be. But she succeeded. I didn't.
My mother was almost the exact opposite of me. She never gave up, an optimist
on everything. So when my grandmother refused to tell her, my mother used
tactics on her I could never think of. She'd pay so close attention to
people and their needs she could make almost anyone fall into one of her
traps. She did that to my grandmother a few times.
When my mother was fourteen, she staged a crying rampage throughout the
house and when my grandmother came running, half-angry because her pot
roast was left unattended and half-scared that my mother would break everything
in the house and then jump off the roof after that, my mother collapsed
in her arms, sobbing into her chest. "What is it?", my grandmother
had demanded. And between sobs my mother replied, "All the girls
at school have a close relationship with their mothers and now that I
had to tell about you in school today, I was speechless. There was nothing
to say; only that you're a strict mother who's no fun and is never, ever
open about her life!" My mother had stood up, and with supposed rage
knocked down a table she knew wouldn't break with nothing resting on top
of it. She then screamed, "I HATE THIS LIFE. I HATE HAVING TO LIVE
WITH TWO DULL-NOBODY’S WHO-" And that’s where my grandmother
exploded. "How dare you speak to me with that tone, young lady! If
you only knew who I've given up, what I've been through, where I was from,
how I got here, I could slap you here and now a thousand times until you
screamed with mercy!!!". My mother had a hard time trying to keep
her smile hidden, "Then why don't you tell me then?" And so
my grandmother did. She told her long grueling story about her life in
Lithuania and America.
I met your father in a
bar; I was nineteen and he was twenty-four. For that year we spent many
days together, even though World War II was happening before our very
eyes. My family was quite lucky. My father was a carpenter and many people
from our city, Vilnius, came for his service. Your father and I got married
that year, I had just turned twenty and he was twenty-five. Life was like
a boat on calm water. We floated along, going with the flow of our lives.
But when the current was strong, and when the Germans took over Vilnius,
we didn't even try to hold onto the boat, to stay afloat. And when the
boat tipped over, we practically jumped into our doom. The Germans brought
my whole family (including your father) to their home country, to work
as laborers in a plane factory. We worked there for seven years, thinking
the world was against us, that we'd never be free to do as we would like.
Our whole family stayed together like a pack of wolves, trying to never
lose one another, but it was impossible. When your father and I saw an
escape route from this hell hole, we decided to take it. A family of farmers
from Maryland wanted a couple of Lithuanians to sponsor. We thought it
would be the only chance we'd get to get out. I thought I'd never see
my family again...and I was right.
Our trip was fine - we
were flown over and when we met the farmers (they were quite lovely people)
they brought us to their home. We helped them work during the day and
night, but every day since I have lived with fear and negativity. What
if we were taken out of our homes again? "What if's" always
captured my mind, and I've never lived a day where I felt completely relaxed
with my life. When I was younger, I would be optimistic, an "Everything
will work out!" attitude. But you see where that got me? You've got
to learn to be strong, and even if you feel fear, hide it under the clothes
you wear, hide it behind your eyes.
Your father and I made enough money at the farm to buy our own apartment
in Baltimore, where you were born. We made a life of our own. I might
seem like a "dull-nobody", but that's only because I'm hiding
behind a mask. If you took off the mask, you'd be able to see all my secrets.
You would then know that pounds and pounds of meat are in the freezer
in the basement, that I'm always fearing another war will erupt, and that
meat will be the only thing that is stable in life when it does.
So tell your friends about that. Would they like to know about that? Or
would they like to know me as they already do, as you used to know me?
Many of your friends' mothers have simple lives...but I don't. Nothing
can be simple for me.
My mother had told me this story many times, so maybe my negativity had
come from that. But the way my mother still is always positive, makes
me proud of her. She is courageous and bold without using fears to increase
her feelings in something. I just wish I could be like that, but I guess
my mother and I balance each other out. Everyone gets both of our points
of views, since we both talk out a lot. I just wish she looked that bold
right now, sitting in that hospital bed. But she looks defeated. I go
up to her and give her the strongest hug I can without giving her pain.
She looks at me, smiling. She knows my strength and that gives her the
power to heal.
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