Losing your mind is easy. Watching someone lose theirs, however, is heart wrenching.
She lay there, staring at the ceiling like she was in the Sistine Chapel rather than a hospital ward. Four white walls, plain white ceiling, white curtains pulled closed. I had grown used to sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair and studying either her pale, almost skeletal face or watching cars race by to unknown locations, people living unknown and unrelated lives. An uneven piercing beep which came from the heart monitor beside her bed seemed calm compared to the nurse’s constant bustle, the constant chattering, and commotion. Without having any medical knowledge, I knew that those sharp sounds were too slow and infrequent to be a healthy heartbeat. …show more content…
It eats away at your mind slowly, sometimes without you knowing. First, you forget where you left your keys and it escalates until you forget to eat, until you forget how to walk. Music was the last thing to go. At times my mother would sit there, unmoving and quiet until one of her favourite songs came on. The only sounds you heard from her would be broken melodies as she struggled to remember the words. But now she didn’t even remember them. The haunting notes of those songs still drifted about her bed. I ignored them – they brought back too many memories of bedtime lullabies and her singing while she cooked – she didn’t hear …show more content…
She had always been with me, through the best and worst of my life, and now I was here for her. Taking her cold, fragile hand in both of mine, I sigh shakily, emotions bubbling up to the surface along with tears.
The monitor’s heartbeat abruptly changed, becoming a loud continuous drone. I look up. On the screen, where there were once mountains and valleys, someone had pulled the thread of life that she had been so desperately clinging onto taut. And in that moment I vowed I would never forget her as she had forgotten
She lay there, staring at the ceiling like she was in the Sistine Chapel rather than a hospital ward. Four white walls, plain white ceiling, white curtains pulled closed. I had grown used to sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair and studying either her pale, almost skeletal face or watching cars race by to unknown locations, people living unknown and unrelated lives. An uneven piercing beep which came from the heart monitor beside her bed seemed calm compared to the nurse’s constant bustle, the constant chattering, and commotion. Without having any medical knowledge, I knew that those sharp sounds were too slow and infrequent to be a healthy heartbeat. …show more content…
It eats away at your mind slowly, sometimes without you knowing. First, you forget where you left your keys and it escalates until you forget to eat, until you forget how to walk. Music was the last thing to go. At times my mother would sit there, unmoving and quiet until one of her favourite songs came on. The only sounds you heard from her would be broken melodies as she struggled to remember the words. But now she didn’t even remember them. The haunting notes of those songs still drifted about her bed. I ignored them – they brought back too many memories of bedtime lullabies and her singing while she cooked – she didn’t hear …show more content…
She had always been with me, through the best and worst of my life, and now I was here for her. Taking her cold, fragile hand in both of mine, I sigh shakily, emotions bubbling up to the surface along with tears.
The monitor’s heartbeat abruptly changed, becoming a loud continuous drone. I look up. On the screen, where there were once mountains and valleys, someone had pulled the thread of life that she had been so desperately clinging onto taut. And in that moment I vowed I would never forget her as she had forgotten