my mother

kim

i was seven when i watched my mother drown in her own blood and mucus. four years before i was born, she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. she battled this horrible war for more than ten years before crashing and burning, eventually dying. cancer puts on an excellent poker face; just when you think you're better, you then are lying in some pathetic hole in the ground for eternity. just a month before she had died, she had actually been laughing and talking and she had even been out in the garden a little. sure, the chemo had made her loose all her hair and she looked like a zombie because she was so pale, but my dad was still so madly in love with her. in fact, i'd hear him cry every night before she left, and sometimes look into their room and see him kneeling besides their bed while she slept; crying intensely. i believe that loosing her was like god taking part of his soul. he left at ten o'clock one morning, and wasn't back for a nearly four hours. in those four hours, my mother passed away. sadly, i was there to watch her cough, gag, and drown in her own snot and blood and left for another hour or so for it to sink in and then wallow in the pain and sorrow that was thrown at me. after three years on therapy, i am over it and am done having nightmares about watching her die the same way again and again and again.