I was reading the latest news on my phone in the lobby while waiting for Luisa, when I heard the voices of a son talking to his mom and his mom responding to him faintly as they walked into the building. As they walked past me, I looked up and took a glance at the 40 something year old holding his mother tightly in his arms with a large shoulder bag in tow, and his mother who apparently was born in 1935, walked with him staring straight ahead. He was assuring her that "he got her" and that they were almost where they needed to go.
I looked back down and tried to stare at my phone as my eyes started to swell up and the first tear began to roll down my face. It was all too familiar for me.
As the son with his mom approached the counter, the lady at the registration desk asked him what seemed to be the problem and if they needed to be checked. He proceeded to tell her that he noticed something about her left eye and wanted someone to take a look at it. She asked them to sit in the chair while she called over a nurse to take a look at it.
The son removed the bag from his shoulder and placed it on one of the two chairs in front of the desk. Then he positioned himself behind his mom and grabbed her from her waist and tried to gently position her in front of the other chair. At this point the mother grabs onto the desk, locks her back and legs, refusing to sit down for fear of falling down. As her son continues to reassure his mother with "I got you mom. I got you.", "I won't let you fall. You can let go.".
I look up while all of this is happening and immediately remember the many times that I took my mom to a doctor's office or even trying to get her to sit in her own chair at the dining room table so we can feed her. By now, I am balling as all of the flash backs hit me pretty hard. My voice playing back in my mind, trying to sooth my mom, her grip of death on whatever she was latching onto at the time.
The lady at the registration desk called over a nurse and had her look at the mother and telling the son that it was good for him to bring her. It appears that she may have had a stroke a few days earlier and her eye was droopy. The nurse asked him when he had first noticed it to which he responded that he just noticed it when he saw her today, but apparently it has been like this for a couple of days. When he went to visit her today, he noticed her eye and asked his dad what had happened to his mom. His dad said that she just started to look like that a couple of days ago. The son then proceeded to tell the nurse that he had specifically spoken with his dad a couple of days earlier and had asked how his mother was. The father had responded that something appeared to be wrong with her eye but that she was ok and that they were waiting for a call back from the doctor. It turned out that it was the dentist that was calling back that day and not the doctor.
The nurse indicated that only within the first 3 hours at most, could it really be determined if someone was having a stroke but that they would take a look at her shortly.
The son got up, tried to lift the mother from the chair only to meet resistance again from the mother who would not stand up, afraid to fall down. She eventually stood, with the son's repeated voice trying to comfort her that he had her.
As they walked halfway across the room to an empty bench where they could sit next to each other, the mother's feet shuffling across the floor as he walked her ever so gently. He sits her in the chair and then tells her that he is just going outside for a minute to get on a call.
Again another reminder of the times I had to juggle conference calls in between doctor visits, taking the moments I could to try to keep the ball going at work while still trying to do what I could, to be there for my parents.
The tears flowed unconditionally and I felt like I was breathing into a bag because of the mask I was wearing.
After a few minutes, I got up and walked across the room to look out the window and see if I could catch a glimpse of where the son was.
As I saw him get out of his car and start to walk back to the medical center, I walked out the door so I can meet up with him. I know I caught him off guard when I stopped right where he was and started to talk with him.
I told him that I had lost my mom just about 2 years ago and that I too understood and respected what he was going through. I told him that mom battled Alzheimer's for 12 years and that I just felt that I had to tell him how I wished him all the best, that God Bless him and his mother. That he reminded me of myself and what we went through and that he was doing the "right" thing. After all, we only have one mother.
His response, a simple "Thank you Sir" and in he went to be by his mother's side. I walked back in and sat in my chair waiting for Luisa. When another nurse opens the back door and calls the name of the mother, "Johnny Mae"...
The son and mother stand up and start the long, slow walk, to the front of the room. The nurse starts moving faster to meet them half way and ask if she would like a wheelchair. The mother responds with a quick no. She says that she can walk.
They walked back into the medical office so they can be seen.
Next month will be the 2nd anniversary of mom's passing from her 12 year battle with Alzheimer's. It's moments like this that remind me of the gut wrenching memories of feeling helpless to really cure what ailed my parents, especially my mom but to do all that I could at that particular time.
While I don't wish for mom to have spent any second longer in this life having to deal with what she was struggling through, I do sort of miss those moments of holding her tightly and reassuring her that "I had her".
I miss you mom.
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