Waiting

I'm sitting here waiting. I'm waiting to hear some obscure doctor give final notice. Ten o'clock, they tell me.

No one is going to hold my mother before her surgery. There isn't going to be a surgery.

Hopefully, right now, she's on a morphine drip. The doctor will say, days, weeks, months.

Doesn't matter. She's done. I can tell you it will be days. Maybe a week. No more. She and I have one thing in common. An incredibly strong will and the fear that drives it.

I'm waiting to hear.

I am going to lose her. Lose the battle. Lose the war. Not because I won. Not because I was right. Because she quit.

Don't quit! Come fight me again, I want to yell.

Some plug puller I am.

I wonder, in my own narcissistic fantasy, maybe she really does love me. Maybe she is taking the decision away. Maybe she knows she’s hurt me enough, all of us enough. Time to go.

I am so scared.

And waiting.