I was 18.
It was December, 2002. Mom was horribly sick, again. But this time Dad wasn't around to take her to the hospital or help take care of her. No one knew what was wrong, except she had terrible pain in her side (which, as of today, we now know was lymphoma spreading to her lungs) and anything she ate made her sick.
I had a 1992 Ford Probe. My first car. I had just started a job with a chiropractor, as the only other person in the office besides the doctor. I did the reception, registration, insurance filing, billing, collections, dusting, cleaning, fixing the copier, IT support, snow shoveling and picking up his meals...etc. I went got to work at 7:45 a.m. and left at 5:30 p.m., ran home and changed, then went to my second job as a part-time clerk at an FYE Music. My second job was from 6:30 p.m. until about 10:00 p.m. I made $250 a week in my full time one and $75 a week in my part time. I never had a day off.
Mom was sick. I was alone. My biggest regret, was having to run in for 15 minutes between jobs into her hospital room and finding her all alone in a country with no family. My dad's family had shunned us, blaming her...me...for my parents' divorce. My dad's sister had been best friends with my mom for over 20 years, and there she was, just 7 blocks away from the hospital and refusing to stay with my mother or even visit. I'd run into her room and she hadn't been bathed or the bed sheets hadn't been changed. I'd do it real quick, help her bathe and apologize over and over for having to run. She'd just smile sadly and wave as I ran out. My last image was of her staring out the big window out into the blowing snow.
I was 18, and I drove by the Ivy League, all-girls university I had been accepted into during my senior year of HS on the way to work every morning. I couldn't afford it, in time or money. I would've been on my way to some beginner's Art class at 7:30 a.m., not on my way to unlock a moldy office to rub mentholated gel on Mrs. Hirkach's very dirty neck for 15 minutes, until my fingers locked up and hurt with mild arthritis. Yet, my regret was still...still...being at work while my mother laid up in a hospital room by herself trying to ask for help in her broken English or struggling to make sense of what the doctors were saying without an interpreter.
I am 28. Snow is blowing. Mom's sick, again. This time I don't think I will get another chance to make it right by her. So I have to make it count. I don't want to regret a thing.
One day at a time.
