Mama died September 27, 2001. Exactly ninety days after she fell at her birthday party. I wasn’t there and assumed she was drunk. She swore she was sober. I took her to the walk-in clinic on Tybee Island to see Dr. O’Shaughnessey, a bit of a drunk but a really gifted doctor.
He asked some questions and did a physical neurological test.
“Do you smoke?”
“Yes.”
“Do you drink?”
“Yes.”
“Have you felt confused, unable to remember easy words, anxious?”
“Yes.”
“Stand up. Hold your left leg up and balance on your right.”
She stumbled. He sent her for an MRI.
He called me after he got the results.
“I can’t believe they let her walk out of the hospital. She has lesions on her brain and is in danger of having a seizure any moment.
I need you to find the biggest Valium you can and bring her to see me in the morning. Don’t tell her anything tonight, I want to tell her in the morning.”
I started a Death Journal.
For 90 days I wrote down my every thought. They were about getting laid or dealing with Mama. Every day was spent making lists of things I needed to do. I was the errand runner, bill payer, cook, maid, pill giver, cigarette girl and bartender.
I tried to control the alcohol to make up for my childhood. I mixed her wine with non-alcoholic wine and hid the real stuff under the sink. It was nice of her to let me do that. She knew where it was the whole time and whenever I left her with a sitter she got them to give her the good stuff from under the sink.
I quit trying 48 days into her dying. I felt like I hadn’t seen my Mama in weeks, just this other woman I did not like.
Excerpt from Care & Feeding by Chela Gutierrez.
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