Author: Autumn Vote
10th
Grade
Educator: Caitlin Johnson
Rolla
Well, if I’m remembering correctly, my Mom was placed on an
oxygen tank when I was only 5 years old.
I don’t ever recall seeing my mom without an oxygen tank growing
up. When I was 6 years old, I had
experienced seeing my mom not wake in the morning plenty of times that I
actually lost count. As I recall my
childhood memories, I remember getting off the bus and noticing there would be
an ambulance up at my house getting ready to take my mom to the hospital. I would see that when I’d get off the bus on
a regular basis. I would say maybe three times about every two weeks.
Every time my mom was in the hospital, the doctors would
always tell her “you have to quit your smoking,” but she had never listened.
However, one time when she went to the hospital, it was pretty serious and that
had made her realize that she had to quit smoking. But it wasn’t that
easy. My mom was born with some kind of
disease where she wasn’t even supposed to live to even reach the age of 30, but
somehow (miraculously) she had survived to see the age of 30 and kept
living. But like I said before, she was
on an oxygen tank, which was basically keeping her alive.
There wasn’t much the doctors could do to stop my mom from
being as sick as she was, there wasn’t anything they could do to stop her from
dying in her sleep at times, but they wouldn’t stop trying to keep her alive as
long as they could. My mom was a strong woman, she had to fight a tough battle
just to keep herself alive. She had suffered so much because of just a sickness
she had throughout her life. When I turned seven years old, my mom was in the
hospital again, because she had not woken up two days before. As she was in the hospital, my sister Tara
called the hospital so could talk to her, and so as I was talking to her she
said “Happy birthday my baby. I’m sorry momma’s not there with you.” She
started telling me how much she missed me and that I was going to be able to
see her soon.
Two weeks later, she
was still in the hospital in Minot, ND.
My whole family went down to Minot, ND to visit my mom. When I got there, I gave her a big hug and I
laid down with her as the some of the family was out in the hall, and some were
in the other lounge. As I was laying with my mom in her hospital bed, she had
started to lose her breath very slowly. It seemed like everything was in slow
motion. I just keep asking what was
wrong, because I didn’t know what was going on when she kept losing her
breath. As five minutes (I think) went
by, I had heard her last breath, the heart beat machine go flat, and then I
think I knew she was gone. I remember I
started to cry and my dad or one of my brothers came got me off my mom and
brought me to the hall and hugged me.
After my mom took her last breaths, the doctors asked us if we
wanted to go in and see her on the bed one last time, so we did. While doing so, I started crying more along
with my family, then we went back home with a sadness spread across our
family. My aunties and uncles started
arranging when the wake and funeral would take place. August 27th, 2009 was the
day she died, the funeral and wake took place like 5 days after that.
Losing my mom made me realize that what you love the most
won’t always be around. It also taught
me to make sure to tell your parents how much you love them while you can,
because I never got the chance to. It
makes me feel bad. I never had the
opportunity to get to know her or really spend time with her, because I lost
her at such a young age. I took what
little time that I had with her for granted.
It makes me sad that she won’t ever be here to watch me grow up, she
won’t be able to see me graduate, get married, or have kids. In the end, I get some satisfaction from the
feeling that my mom is watching her youngest child grow up to become a good man
from heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment