I remember the orchids. When the elevator doors opened on the Intensive Care Unit of Queens Hospital, there were these beautiful purple orchids in a square ceramic vase. They were the only color not bleached into terrifyingly dull shades by the fluorescent lights. Up until this point the day had been blurred and blotted, but suddenly upon gazing at the orchids I was snapped back into the here and now. I was 13 and stricken. I asked my older sister Malia to hold my hand. She refused. She was not the nurturing type at 16. She’d never be the nurturing type.
Everything in the hospital seemed larger and out of place. The beeping machines seemed loud. The rectangles of lights seemed to make everything bathed in its glow stiff. Being under the lights I could feel my muscles tighten. As we passed rooms and were given glimpses of the sick and dying, I kept shaking my head to implore the images to leave. This isn’t where my mother belongs. She taught aerobics every morning, she was on my little sisters’ elementary school board as the third vice president. She did bake sales and crafts and she practiced hula.
When I saw her lying in the hospital bed, all the thoughts racing through my head were gone. I drew a deep breath, stepped over the threshold and the tears rolled. My mouth opened but nothing and everything fell out all at once. My mother couldn’t open her eyes or talk she barely twitched.
Earlier in the day, my mother dropped Malia and I off at summer school. She reminded us to be back here at noon. My older sister being the moody, suffering teenager she was jumped out of our blue Ford aerostar van and said,
“Yeah, whatever, I hate you.” My mother clicked her tongue at the statement. I gave my mother a hug and said,
“I love you, mom.”
At noon, we waited, my sister brooding away from me. Finally my dad pulls up in our van and tells us to get in.
“Where’s mom?”
“She has a headache.” This was nothing out of the ordinary. My mother often got migraines. She had begun turning to healing crystals to fix the problem. They didn’t do much but look pretty. My mom had been on high blood pressure medication. But she hated modern remedies, especially doctors and when her prescription ran out she didn't get a refill. I remember once, while driving somewhere my mom pulled over the van and vomited blood. She begged me not to tell anyone.
Sitting next to her hospital bed, I cursed myself for everything that had befallen my mother. She was fine this morning. It was because I didn’t make her refill her prescription, or maybe it was because I didn't tell anyone about the bloody vomit. She twitched and I found comfort in her warm skin. No one had explained to us yet what had happened. I hadn’t seen my father since he rushed my mother to the hospital. It all happened so very quickly.
My friend Lahela came over after summer school we were being loud and obnoxious laughing and joking and messing with my little sisters. We were keeping them occupied as the door to my parent’s bedroom remained locked. My father came out a few times and yelled at us to keep it down, that my mother was suffering with a headache.
“What?” Lahela said. “Is her brain expanding?” We all laughed, thinking of the likelihood.
I knocked on the door once. My mother’s good friend, my Aunty Jane was in there, struggling under my naked mother’s weight. My dad was watching, I think he forgot he had opened the door. They were trying to get her into the shower, she was sweating. I forgot what I had knocked to ask, and the door closed.
Next, Lahela and I were asked to watch my sisters. My dad and Aunty Jane were taking my mom to our family doctor, Dr. Seberg. From what I was told my mother managed to tell Dr.Seberg that she was seeing red. From there she was rushed to the hospital.
The events that lead up to this moment, I can’t recall. I don’t know when Lahela went home; I don’t know where my little sisters were. I know my older sister’s friend drove us to the hospital. I don’t remember the car ride. But I remember my mother, still beautiful and glowing, even under the fluorescent light. I was pale in comparison to her. Her nails were still perfectly painted, her hair still dyed a shade of red. I assumed her green contacts were no longer in her eyes so they would just be that beautiful soft brown color. I never understood my mother with the red hair and green tinted contacts. She was full-blooded Italian. I'd give anything for her to wake up right now and curse obscenities at me in Italian.
Everything blurred and swayed and moved and shifted. I had no idea if the ground I was standing on was real or if it was going to crumble away. It was explained to me slowly.
“Your mother has a brain aneurysm.” I stared down at my thumbs as Dr. Seberg told me this. He traveled to the hospital just to explain to me and my sisters what is happening to our mother. You don’t find doctors like that anymore.
“What’s that?” My voice didn't sound like my own and I looked up with red-rimmed eyes.
“It’s a blood bubble located here.” He pointed between my eyebrows. My eyes tried to follow but gave up. “See, it started leaking and the brain can only hold so much fluid. When the blood bubble began to leak into the brain, you mother began seeing red and her brain was actually swelling, causing the migraine.” Lahela was right her brain was getting bigger.
“What?” I had to find words, say something on my little sisters’ behalf “What are you going to do?”
“Well, they’re going to perform brain surgery and remove the bubble. It’ll be about a 3-hour operation and she won’t be able to grip as tightly in one hand as she can in the other.” My tears dried and there were trumpets being played and a light at the end of the tunnel and a silver lining on my gray clouds.
Her head was half shaved. She had a feeding tube down her throat and there were machines beeping loudly and artificially. She was in a coma. Her left lung was collapsed. Again, my mind faltered and it couldn't wrap around what had happened.
Malia pulled me aside.
“She’s dying, Leila.”
“Huh?” I was so lost and confused.
“Dr. Seberg told me the truth; she has a one percent chance of living in a vegetative state.”
“What, what does that mean?” I had dropped in age from 13 to 5 and everything needed to be explained, slowly.
I cursed. I cried.
My sister gave me no sympathy and walked away.
When they went in to remove the aneurysm, it burst and flooded the brain with blood. They only thing they could do, was stop the blood flow, but the damage was done. This turned a three-hour operation with a good chance at survival, into a thirteen-hour operation with a minimal chance of survival. This turned my family from mother-dependent, to a wandering mass of lost souls.
How hard it must have been for my father. Here he was the breadwinner, the macho male he was suddenly, in the blink of an eye, losing his love and having to raise four girls on his own. My father knew nothing of being a mother. For a skinned knee, he’d tell you to walk it off.
The day after the surgery, before we were allowed to see the remains of what was a vibrant woman, my father came home and scooped up my little sisters. Malia, was no where to be found. He wore his sunglasses in the house and it was apparent why. He had my 10-year-old sister Keala on one knee and my 7-year-old sister, Nalani on the other. The tears rolled down from his tinted eyes.
“Your mother is on life-support.” He told us and I don’t think my little sisters understood what he said. But I did and the moan immediately found me. I wailed and rampaged. The beauty of summer in Hawaii was lost on me. I felt the world should be in darkness. The sky should be mourning for my mother. There would be no sunshine. The sunbeams were being intrusive, this was an intimate affair.
Moments later my older sister waltz through the door laughing. I ran to her, I screamed at her. All I remember after that is being in the hospital.
There was vanilla in the room. Her skin seemed to radiate it. For years she sprayed Vanilla Fields on her flesh. It seemed to have absorbed the smell and now that she wasn't spraying it on her daily it was releasing it’s stored up scent. My mind was growing dizzy off the smell. I have sat by her bedside for two days now. Holding her slightly stiff hand, I’d look for any sign of independent life. There was none. I talked to her, gossiped about friends. Told her how my budding boyfriend broke up with me and I could care less. Who breaks up with someone while their mother is dying in the hospital? I told her that my hula class kicked me out because I was missing too many practices. We were training for the Merrie Monarch, which is a huge hula competition on the Big Island of Hawaii. It brings prestige and honor to anyone who competes but most importantly to those who win.
Each step I took seemed heavy and long. Everyone seemed to be bees buzzing by me and I was a slug struggling to keep up. I once fell asleep sitting in a chair, my head on my mother’s hospital bed. She woke up and placed her hand on my head. I was crying. It was a dream that felt so real I woke up in tears. She was still beeping.
My father called all the friends and family into the Intensive Care Unit “Chapel.” It wasn't really a chapel. It had a form of an altar, some chairs. It had a statue of the Mother Mary in an alcove behind the altar, except, the Mary was easily disguised behind sliding glass doors. My little sisters and I distracted ourselves sliding in front of Mary the Star of David and then Buddha. We slammed the doors forwards and backwards. It was fun. We smiled.
When my father emerged, he asked everyone to sit. There were so many people we filled up all the chairs and people had to stand and then overflow out into the hallway. He leaned heavily against the altar. His sunglasses were gone, all that remained were his pink cheeks and misted eyes. He had the most beautiful eyes. Light brown with gold inflections. My littlest sister, Nalani had his eyes. They were red-rimmed and abused; it took him a minute to compose himself. His exhaustion weighed heavily on his broad shoulders. He was a big man six-foot-three and strong, but he looked weak leaning against the altar. He looked like he was about to cave in on himself.
He stared at my sisters and I,
“Your mother died …” He didn't finish the sentence. Up until this point we had all held onto faith. This couldn't happen, not to her, not to us. My Aunty Jane, the one who helped my mom while she was still conscious put it best,
“Just when you think there are no more tears, there they are.”
The room broke out into a wailing outburst. I ran. I didn't want to get caught up in the grieving, in the pity. I didn't want the pats on the back, the tear stained clothes. I wanted out. The comforting was a disease, one I didn't want to catch. I never wanted to hear the words, “you poor thing” or “It’s okay.” No, it’s not okay but it will be someday, hopefully. I didn't want it, so I ran to my mother’s hospital room. I was the first one there.
My body leaned in first before stepping into the room. She looked horrible she was an awkward reminder of what she once was. The pale colors of yesterday were drained to a yellow hue. Her nose was nearly transparent. She looked like a basic wax sculpture. She was so stiff and cold. I tried to curl up with her but her body was unyielding. I screamed for people to come in and say goodbye at one point I grabbed one of my close friend's arm and dragged her into the room. She didn't want to see my mother like that. I didn’t want to see my mother like this but it was the only way to prove to my unbelieving mind that she was gone. She was gone. The hospital gown looked embarrassed trying to hide her form. She was so beautiful.
Everything was spinning and I felt myself going down, but I wasn't I was standing perfectly still.
A red carnation was placed delicately on her chest. Her left hand covered the stem. She loved carnations. They must have done that right after she died. Her limbs were too stiff now to move.
Indistinct days followed. She was cremated and placed in a hideous plastic brown box that resembled some form of military container. My sisters, my father and I all sat with the ugly brown thing and watched “Days of our Lives.” It was such a ridiculous daytime soap opera but my mother loved it. She had watched it habitually for maybe 10 years. It was just one little thing we could do for her. We transferred her to a pretty blue vase type container that we placed her wedding ring in and sealed with a blue glass ball.
The funeral was huge. People were packed so tightly into the little church on the side of Kalanianaole Highway that is looked like midnight Christmas mass. They had to set up chairs outside and open the sliding glass doors. It took less than a week for my mother to go from healthy to deceased. I never got to say goodbye. I never got to say anything to her in the hospital. I talked and hoped she could listen.
People started a grieving train. A line of hugs and kisses, and pats and words that don’t begin to express their sorrow.
My face was blank. Tears slipped out and someone told my cousin I didn't look sad enough. I laughed, what could I do? Who invented levels of sadness? And what did I care about throwing myself on the deceased vase and making a show of myself? I couldn't even grasp the fact that my mother was gone. Five days ago she was fine. Just fine.
We took a limo to the graveyard. My older sister almost dropped the vase. She wanted to mourn, but I don’t think she knew how.
I visit the grave on my rare trips home. Every time I visit her, it rains. In Hawaiian mythology, it’s a good sign.
