From the Other Side of My Bed

12. Mommy Dearest

I wish I could say the world went dark after your death.
I wish I could say the air went missing and made it difficult for years to breathe, when you stopped breathing that one april 16th.
I wish I knew what your favorite flowers were, so I could place some in our table to commemorate you.
I wish your death had been impactful.
And it was.
But no one made it seem that way when you died, mama.

I can barely remember anything that went through that led you up to the hospital.
I just remember you didn't get home one day, and I shrugged at this because oh well.
You couldn't die.
You're mama.
You're the iron lady.
The most formidable woman I know.
You were bigger than cancer.
But you were already stage 4, and dying that one april.

I was at the movies with nikkolas, i don't remember what we were watching.
But as we were throwing popcorn at each other to catch with our mouths, my phone rang in my pocket and I soon stood up and walked out the showing room, and it was my second oldest sister calling so I answered.

Silence.

"Hey, mom has 5 hours to live. You should come."

Silence.
Silence.
Silence. Silence. Everything in the world went fucking quiet.

Nikkolas had just walked in the conversation, hearing with me the same thing, and he stared at me as I slowly dropped to the floor, tears already coming out.
"5 hours to-"
"Live. yes, madeline. To live."

I soon hung up, and Nikkolas was already by my side, holding me as I fell apart.
He desperately called his parents through the phone and they immediately carried me out of the theaters and we soon found ourselves in your hospital.
He held my hand as we ran through the halls, looking for your room as his mom followed behind and when we found it, I stopped in my tracks at the door's margin.
The first thing I saw was your legs.
God, mom.
Your legs were rotten, with purplish, greenish marks on them and I had to compose myself before coming in but I couldn't.
I couldn't face you, and I'm sorry for doubting but mom, you weren't yourself anymore.
Before I went in, nikkolas gave me a quick hand squeeze and I went in.
Everything went soundless, and when people saw me walk in, I heard gasps but sounded muffled, underwater, echoes.
It was weird but even when my oldest sister came screaming at me, it sounded like aggressive echoes and nothing more.
"What are you doing here!" she screamed and screamed in my face, but my eyes were focused on you, mom. "You need to go! Mom doesn't want you here!"
"Get out!"
"Fuck out of here!"
"She doesn't want you here!"

Was it true, mama?
That you didn't want me there as you lay on your deathbed?
Had I been so awful?
I knew I wasn't the best, and I fought with you a lot or didn't listen to you always, but did you really didn't want your baby there? I was only 13, mom!
Why didn't you want me!?

"Get the fuck out!" My sister kept screaming, punching my chest and pushing me away from you as I kept saying I wanted to see you, mom.
Until our aunt intervened and pushed her off me, I was able to come close to you, but it was worthless. You weren't you anymore, mama.
You kept saying incoherent things, deep into delirium and god, looking at you was the worst.
You were beautiful.
You had rosy cheeks and a radiant smile with skin that any woman would kill for, fresh and effortlessly clean and wrinkle free, and over night (or how it seemed to me) you aged a hundred years and you look emaciated, with skin unnaturally hanging off your bones so tight, and your eyes were hollow and your skin was going blue.
I was horrified.

I was never sure if I loved you, mama.
You made it so hard to love you.
But like they say, you only find out what was most essential when you're about to lose it.
I deeply hate crying, and for fact, I don't cry easily since both dad and you taught me not to cry, like you tell men not to cry. But how couldn't I cry at seeing you so pathetically destroyed and lifeless, when you were sunshine?

It was devastating to see once a formidable woman being this pathetically destroyed.

In a moment of clarity, you pulled me aside, and made me listen to this:
"Change the way you heart and your mind is."

You died on April 16, 2014.
After a month-long battle against liver cancer, you went peacefully, with all the people that loved you at your side.
I didn't got to say goodbye.
In a blink of an eye and exhaustion from endless crying, you took your last breath at 11:14 pm while I closed my eyes for a minute to rest, and i didnt get to say goodbye to you.
I didn't got to say goodbye.

After you were pronounced legally dead, everyone disappeared.
Your only son, who loved you so much, your confident, your right hand, tried killing himself from the 20th floor. It took a pastor of the church you used to go to, and a whole endless night, to convince him to live.

Now me.
Well, everyone left me with your corpse.
Including your children, my siblings.
None of my sisters cried for you, they just sighed and departed quietly into the night.
Even our aunt, dad's sister, left me there.

That moment when everyone left and it was just me and you, I tearfully got in bed with you.
I wrapped your arm around me, as if you were hugging me, and got finally my last hug from you. Mama, you never hugged me, and I never hugged you.
But at last, there we were, hugging each other and I don't know which is more heartbreaking.
The thousands of hugs you denied me or that last hug.

Afterwards, I walked aimlessly and heartlessly throughout the hallways of the hospital. Seeing each room being filled with dying patients, nurses lazily sitting at their cubicles and machinery rolling. I soon found the stairs from the nineteenth floor to avoid the elevator and sat there.

I just stared at the annoyingly white walls and stairs.
The walls began swallowing me alive. I could feel them getting closer and closer to me and I swear I saw how the lights flickering uncontrollably and the air was heavy.
A deep, bone chilling scream left my lips so loud that it still echoes till this day.
It echoed three times as I sobbed and cried.

Eventually, my aunt felt ashamed of herself and came back to the hospital and took me to her house. There, she didn't wait and just threw me in a black room and left me alone.
You would think that when a kid's mom dies, the family is there to console the child.
But that wasn't my case.

I always think of you, mama.
There's no day that goes by that I don't wish for you to be here and we could sit down in the balcony and watch the birds eat with a cup of coffee at hand and laugh together. But i know i wont get that one meaningful luxury, and it's okay.
But there are days when I feel a hole in my heart, where you should be at.

Everyone thought I was immune to your death because they never saw me breakdown. But every milestone I've ever achieved, like at both my graduations, I would imagine you sitting down at any seat, smiling as you clapped slowly and watched me walk down that stage, proudly showing off my diplomas. I actually carried your ashes in a pendant both times.
I used to sleep next to you every night till I was twelve, and to find you no longer among the sheets created a fear of the darkness, which caused six years of sleeping with the lights on. It was painful, but I miss you, mama.

Overall, I'm sorry I wasn't a great daughter and I'm sorry you never got to see me rise from any of this. I heard it's beautiful over there, i hope you are where you're supposed to be at.
Forever happy and at peace.