through a glass

It's a bit unsettling to know exactly what things are for, how to use them, set them up, what buttons to press, when, and why; unsettling to be so familiar with a hospital room. Having spent a lot of time in them while growing up, in a silence as sterile as the place itself, it's only natural I guess that I've come to know them like the back of my hand. Why did I say that last part? So cliche...anyway...

Hospitals are comforting to me; I feel like everyone there has a purpose whether they work there, are a patient there, or are just visiting. What was once a sterile and cold building has come to feel rather homey to me. Am I morbid, feeling this way? I don't know. Maybe. But it comes and goes, much like the people. I like hospitals. Much of my family hates them and would rather avoid them at all costs, but something about the extremes of a hospital intrigue me. While transporting my mom to the ICU, I passed by so many adorable elderly people who were on their morning strolls around the floor, telling stories of their children and their pasts which the staff have probably heard at least twice by now. It's funny how the older we get, the harder we try to hold on to everything. We try to keep things alive long past our own expiration dates. As I was leaving to come back home, I stepped to the edge of the curb and stood right next to a woman in a wheelchair. Thinking she, too, was sick, I looked at her sympathetically only to find a newborn baby boy in her arms. I gasped, literally, and she looked up to greet me with eyes so wide and overflowing with joy that I couldn't help but smile and half-scream, "OH!! Congratulations!" Such incredible extremes: people dying and people being born all in the same building, all at the same time. I reveled in the juxtaposition I had just witnessed and was ready to delve deep into the thought when it dawned on me that my mother is different (hopefully..); she is someone stuck in-between this breathing dichotomy. Or is she?

I've grappled with the fact that my parents aren't immortal; they, like everyone else, are human. I wrote a post a while back about their health, something like messy ramblings on my feelings and realizations and whatnot. I didn't publish it, but I think I will. It explains a lot about my relationship with them and how it (our relationship) has never been a steady or reliable one. I don't look back fondly on my childhood. I'll be hard-pressed to say I even had one. Regardless, at some point during my later high school and early college years, I took up looking after them. This isn't really me reciprocating anything. It's just me thinking that this is what a daughter should do, regardless of what they (as parents) did or did not do.

As I walked behind her bed being pushed down the hallway, I was 13 again. Bitter and angry; frustrated that she never took care of herself or went to get checked like I had told her to; pissed that she got herself into this situation. I was so 13. So stupid. So unaware.

I sat in the dark as she and I watched WALL-E on the outdated television screen.

"I don't like noise," she mumbled.

So I sat with her in silence, haunting in its emptiness but as familiar to me as it was 10 years ago. I looked at her then the same way I did when I was younger: from a distance and as if through a glass. I felt like I could never reach her; I still feel like can't. And, to be honest, I'm not sure I ever will.

We'll see how things go. She had one of the best surgeons, so I'm sure she'll be fine. Hopefully I can wrestle with my thoughts enough that some end thought or result will come to surface. Maybe it's the whole feeling of the place, how most everyone is a player in this waiting game, that allows me to think so much and with such clarity. I don't know. All I know is that I don't want to get too familiar with this one. It's too soon to be 13 again.