Wednesday, March 17, 2004

My mother spends a night in the hospital for some procedure. Endoscopy. The whole thing sounds harmless enough—although also invasive. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it is for her ulcers, I guess. She has been complaining of pains in her belly area for days, but refused to see a doctor for a long time. “Quacks, all of them!” she’d say. “I’d rather pray.”



Later she called me up out of the blue, one night: “Dr. So-and-so says I have ulcers!” the way other people talk about having a new grandchild.



“It’s because you don’t eat enough, Ma,” I tell her. I roll my eyes. Not out of apathy, but for her theatrics. She has the passionate sense of passive aggression down pat. I have perfected the art of not humoring her. She loves me for it. We share the same birthday—thus we know the cosmic drama with which we shape our lives.



She has a big refrigerator, which she refuses to stock. “I’m all alone in the big house,” she’d say this same mantra over and over that it has become a prayer, “I can’t eat all that food, you know.” (Then again, she gets full by the second bite of whatever it is that is on her plate, plus a glass of water and green banana.)



It is also her way of persuading us into a kind of guilt: that of her empty nest, her queendom now devoid of sons to berate, and feed. But what did I expect from someone who raised six boys singlehandedly?



In Holy Child Hospital where she once bore me 28 years ago, she parades around the room in her casual wear and jewelry. “Why don’t you get into your hospital gown?” I ask.



She dismisses this suggestion with a flick of her wrist. “The doctor has not come by yet. Besides, I’m watching my soap operas.”



Later, when the doctor comes to tell her to get ready for her IV, I help her in the bathroom into her crisp hospital gown, which she likes. “I like the way it scrapes my skin,” she says. “What perfect laundry.”



I do not want to watch the doctor insert the IV needle into her arm. At 71, mother still flinches from the prick. Or suggestions of it. Then she suddenly shoos me away. We both laugh out loud for no reason at all.


[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich

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