Russ to the Rescue

We’d said our goodnights hours earlier, but neither Mom nor I could sleep. I heard her tossing and turning in her bedroom, then flicking on the light to read.

I couldn’t begin to get comfortable on her living room couch, the springs sighing beneath me, the air in her small apartment thick and heavy. Cars passed by, their headlights splashing shadows on the walls. A bit of early winter chill seeped through.

Finally I clicked the TV on, keeping the volume low. Nothing to watch but infomercials, but I kept the TV on, hoping the white noise would lull me to sleep, drowning out my anxiety, anxiety over two of the most important people in my life.

My son Russ. When would he ever grow up? And, Mom. How had she gotten so old so fast? She’d always been full of pep and sass, but now, nearing 80, she seemed worn out. She had an enlarged heart, arthritic knees, a fading memory, dwindling finances…each new problem carried a new list of complications. It scared us both. At one time it would have upset Russ too. Not now, apparently.

Come morning I would be taking Mom to St. Vincent’s Hospital for a heart catheterization. The cardiologist assured her that it was a routine procedure, just a mapping of the heart, but three times she’d canceled the appointment, until I finally insisted that she had to go. It was weird telling her what to do—me bossing her.

The role reversal was painful. I couldn’t understand her reluctance. She’d faced far greater challenges in her life—widowed at 35, raising three children on her own. Heart catheterization should have been a snap. But it was the fear of the unknown, everything falling apart. I felt it too, as though our whole family were breaking up.

I sat up, fished my cell phone out from the tangled blanket I’d been kicking around and called home. A few persistent rings and my husband, Mike, answered, groggy from sleep.