Writer in the Forest

Chapter 25

Can you sing La Paloma, Mom? Do you know who I am?

She could sing all the verses of La Paloma in Spanish with me, but she didn’t know who I was. Mom and I sang and sang for hours on end. Nurses peeked in and wondered what was happening in room 412.

One thing about it. Mom was now off the narcotics and way calmed down. Maybe this was my new Mom. It was sad, but I could get used to New Mom.

I taped photographs all over the bed rails. Mom looked at them with curiosity, but didn’t remember any of us. She had no reaction when I walked into the room, but she wasn’t afraid of me, either. I wondered if my visits would become a new memory she could hold on to. I reminisced. Mom listened for hours, but didn’t participate.

Bill came. He leaned in close and whispered in Mom’s ear. I stood in the doorway and let him hug me as I cried. Later, Mom would tell me she saw us and dreamed as she drifted into near-death that we were standing in a cave. We were children dressed in school clothes she remembered as she floated through. Before the cave she’d been wandering happily in a field of daisies. She made me promise that I would never again suffer while she was in a coma because the field of daisies was the most wonderful, peaceful place in the world.

She was reminding me of God, in case I needed it.