We walked into her room, opened up her suitcase and started packing the clothes inside. "You'll have to get used to the shaking" she said. "I think it's permanent." I nodded but I was very scared. She wasn't like this just a few days before. In came a aide and made sure she had all her clothes. He told her to remember to get her prescription filled before she went home. She signed a piece of paper and off we went. When we finally got in my car it was already 3:40 p.m.. She said, "We need to go to Wal-Mart before we go home." "Okay mom", I said.
When we got to the store my mom said "I don't want you to leave my side ok?" I nodded. She was noticeably embarrassed cause of the twitching in here right wrist. She gave the pharmacist her prescription and took a seat on the waiting bench. "Mom, it's almost 4:05, I need to call work and let them know I'll be there when I can. Will you be alright here?" She said, "Sure, You go call." When I got back from phoning I found my mom crying with one of the pharmacists comforting her. "What happened?" I asked. The pharmacist said "Well we won't honor the prescription by that doctor." My mom was mumbling and crying upset about how she was going to pay for it. They got her regular doctor on the telephone and he agreed to prescribe it. So my mom was fine. Her sad face turned to a smile of relief. Seeing that she was alright I told her I would be right back and went to the restroom. By the time I returned this time, I found her legs as well as both of her arms shaking uncontrollably. "What's going on?", I asked worriedly. She replied, " I don't know." There was a crowd of nosy bystanders gawking at her. Someone meanly asked me, "Who are you?" "I am her daughter," I said. "Does she have a history of seizures?" asked the pharmacist. "Yes" replied a nosy person in the crowd who didn't even know her. "No!" I yelled back. My mom was still shaking but was conscious the complete time. Finally she regained control of herself. We got her medicine and I helped her out of the store and to my car. She was so embarrassed and said to me,"No one will want me now, I'm damaged goods. Do you see what those doctors did to me?" I told her about the nurse saying it would go away and she started to calm down. It was breaking my heart to see her like this. We got to her apartment and I got her something to eat and drink and she took her medication. Her wrist was only slightly shaking now and the shaking of her legs had stopped. I asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital. "No!" she snapped. So I stayed with her as long as she wanted me to. She finally said, "I'll be alright, you need to go to work." So I did, not that I wanted to, but because I needed to money. Afterwards I checked on her and she was doing better. I asked her if she wanted me to say the night and she said she would be fine.
The next morning I was awoken to a phone call. It was my mom, she sounded terrified. "Come and get me and take me to the hospital" she said. "They're happening as we speak." She was referring to the shaking. I told her okay and that I would be there in 20 minutes since it was 15 minute drive to her house. She said, "Okay." When I got there neighbors were standing outside waiting for me. They told me an ambulance had came for her. I thanked them and drove quickly to the hospital. I got there to find my mom acting very strange. She was shaking and telling me strange things. She told me, "No matter what, I want you on that plane." I had a planned trip to England for Saturday afternoon of which I would be gone two weeks. It was already Thursday. My boyfriend who is British had paid for my ticket months in advance so that I could get the chance to see him, his family, and beautiful England. I answered her, " Okay mom, I will." I comforted her while she waited for the doctor. Her boyfriend showed up and comforted her too. She was calm now. After they gave her a shot of medicine I asked her if she needed me to stay. She said, "No hon, I know you have some things to do before work." Her boyfriend reassured me that he would take her home. After work I stopped by to check on her again. I walked in the apartment to find her shaking allover again and my brother's mother-in-law, Joyann, sitting on the couch with her. My mom was dictating to her as she wrote down all she said. Again I asked the oh-so-familiar question "What is going on here?" Joyann replied, "Your mother is tired of the doctors not believing her and wanted me to write a few thing down for her." Right then my mom fell on the floor and started shaking. "Call 911!" Joyann yelled. I called and told the operator the situation. The operator asked, "Is this the same apartment we have been to already twice earlier?" I said "Huh?" My mom was still conscious so I asked her. She said " yes." I could now see the operator's point. He thought this was all in her head since the hospital never admitted her the two times prior. The ambulance arrived and I followed in my car. The doctor gave her another shot and told her to go home. By this time I was completely stressed out. In the past 2 days I had been to the hospital more than I had in my entire life! In the car I told her I would take her to my home or wherever she wanted me to take her. She said she wanted to go home. We got her to her apartment and she motioned for me to come and look at something. I asked, "What?" She said, "Well I just want you to know if something ever happens to me these rings are yours." I said, "Mom, your going to be just fine. If you wanna talk about that when I get back from England we will." She said, "You're right." She hugged me and told me she so glad I was getting a chance to see England. As I was leaving she hugged me again, very tight. I told her goodnight and I left. Since I was so stressed because of all this I hadn't realized what had just been said to me until I was almost home. My whole body turned ice cold as the thought entered my mind. "Oh my god she's gonna do it! She's gonna kill herself!" I got home and e-mailed my boyfriend and told him to call me right then. I don't know why I did that first but I did. He called me and I cried over the phone to him as he consoled me. By the time I got off the phone to him it was very late and I went right to sleep without remembering to call my mom and check on her. I awoke in panic that Friday morning. I stood straight up in bed and grabbed the phone. I called my grandma cause I was afraid that if I called my mom's house no one would answer the phone and that I might be right. My grandma calmed my fears when she said that she had just gone to see my mom and that she was fine. I breathed a sigh of relief and then almost felt a little silly for actually thinking my mom would commit suicide. I thanked my grandma and then went to meet my dad for lunch. I told my dad what was going on . He said not to worry and that when they were married she was a bit of a hypochondriac. I felt more at ease now. After lunch I went and ran all my errands to prepare for my trip tomorrow. After I was done shopping I stopped by my mom's apartment about 9 p.m. to show her all of the good deals I had gotten that day. That was something we always liked to do was brag about our thriftiness. She was so glad to see me, and she looked so much better. Her color in her face was peachy again, not the white, clammy color I had seen the night before, and she wasn't shaking. I told her how good she looked and she smiled. About an hour after I had been there her boyfriend showed up to see how she was doing. He saw I was there and said he would leave cause he didn't want to intrude since I left for England the next day. I told him I was about to leave anyhow and he stayed. I gathered up my shopping bags and headed towards the door. My mom followed me and hugged me. She said another strange thing, "I love you, and Paul, and your brother...." My mom always told me she loved me and I told her the same, but she never went thru a list of names. I thought maybe she was just saying that cause I was going to England for two weeks and she would miss me. I left knowing that she was fine. I went home and started packing for the trip. I couldn't find a favorite shirt of mine so I called my mom about 11:30 p.m. and asked her to see if it was at her house. She told me it wasn't and I told her that I loved her and goodnight. I packed all night long. Saturday when I got on the plane I was still a little worried about my mom but I knew she wanted me to go. When I finally arrived at London-Gatwick, after the long 9 hour flight and the 3 hours before that waiting for the plane, I was jet-lagged. I was so tired but still excited to be in another country cause I had never traveled outside of the United States before. I was also looking forward to seeing my boyfriend again. When I saw Paul's familiar face I felt relaxed again. It was a 3 hour drive from London to his hometown. I slept the whole way. When we got there I logged onto his computer to tell my grandpa that I had made it safely via ICQ, an Internet communication program. My grandpa typed back, "Good. Now call your grandma now!" I looked at Paul with a puzzled look on my face and turned off the computer. I called my grandma's house and said, "Hi grandma, it's Christy. I made it here safely." She said, "Good hon, here talk to your father." My first thought was ‘my father?' My dad got on the phone and said, "Christy, hon, your mother died." I fell to the floor and started crying. I asked "How?" He told me that she had overdosed on sleeping pills, nerve medication, and that she had left two notes. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Thursday if this all would of happened I would of not been as shocked, but I had just saw her before I left and she seemed fine. After a long time on the phone I finally hung up and told Paul. Paul hugged me and started crying too since he really liked my mom. I called my dad back later and found out that the Navy was trying to get him back home. My brother is a nuclear engineer on a submarine and it is a big chore to get him back to dry land since only a few people know where they are. My dad also said that my grandma had decided to cremate her body, hold a memorial service with pictures, and bury the ashes. He told me it would be impossible to show her body properly since she had laid on the bathroom floor so long before her boyfriend found her dead. I said that would be fine. I know it sounds awful of me but I didn't want to go back home. I deal with issues differently . If I am not emotionally strong enough to handle the situation, I stay away. When my brother and his family got back to Illinois he called me yelling and saying things like, " You better get back here so we can bury our mother." I was a wreck. I had just lost my mother who was one of my closest friends, and now my brother is angry at me cause I was in England. I think they were all convinced that I was having a lovely time not even thinking about the death of my mother. Ha! Yeah, right! But quite honestly, I did not want to come back. The next day to make everyone back home happy, I called the airlines to arrange an immediate flight back. The airlines told me, "I'm sorry about your loss hon, but there are no standby seats available for when you need them." I called back home and told them all to "Deal with it, because I have to." I missed the memorial service and the burial of the ashes, but the way I felt about it was that my mom knew I was going to be in England when she died, and that is what she wanted. The rest of my stay in England was the best I could possibly make of it. I woke up crying a lot of the nights and Paul would come in and hold me while I cried my eyes dry. I was not looking forward to going back home and face reality. The day I left England and came back to the nightmare was terrible. I had all kinds of family around me, but I had never felt so alone. My brother and his wife's family had already started pricing the estate cause he only had so long of leave time in to take care of the business. We had all this debt that mom had left behind. There was the car, the cremation, the memorial service, the monument, and a couple thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. We were lucky to find that credit card companies have insurance for deaths. Finding myself in the deep, dark whole of this debt made me resent my mother for being so selfish as to leave us with all this emotional and financial burden. it was an everyday normal activity. I couldn't take it! I ran into the bathroom and shut the door behind me and cried and cried. This was the apartment I was in two weeks earlier talking to my mom, having iced tea, gossiping, talking about my trip to England, etc. Reality had just began to sink in. Even when I read the suicide notes it wasn't as much of a reality slap as this was. As I stood in the bathroom trying to get a hold of my self, I looked down to the linoleum floor. I thought to myself, this was the place they found her lifeless body. This is where it all ended for her. I shuddered. I knew I shouldn't be thinking thoughts like that but I couldn't help it. When I finally thought I had regained control of my emotions, I walked back into the living room trying to act like everything was fine. My brother noticed right away I had been crying by how red my eyes were and my tear-stained cheeks. He hugged me and I wept some more. He told me he knew how I was feeling. Well, after that day it became a little easier to go in the apartment and we finally got the majority of the estate sold in a two day sale. We took out a bank loan to pay for the remainder. The apartment was cleaned and I remember the last moment I was in there. How sad it was too look at the bare walls, the empty rooms and to think how different things were just a few weeks prior. I sighed as I closed that door forever. After that, my brother and his family returned to Georgia, and I felt as if I had to start my life all over again. I went back to work and threw myself head first into my job to try to temporarily forget my heartache. Recently I got a scholarship to go back and finish college. I recall earlier this year my mother and I talking about the importance of education and that I should finish school. She made me promise myself and her that I would. When I got notice of receiving the scholarship I had applied for I knew my mom was rooting for me ‘upstairs'. I also got a important job with an insurance company and my boyfriend and I are talking of marriage after college. I know these wonderful things didn't happen only by coincidence, but because she is my guardian angel watching over me and protecting me. I feel her presence all around me. Last Saturday, a day before my twentieth birthday I went to her grave for my first time alone. Again, I was saddened, but I know she is always here with me. Not in physical sense, but in spirit. Now I live from day to day. I try to make each day count; valuing each moment around friends and family like it might be the last. I look forward to tomorrow, knowing I can make it, I have to. I know that is what my mother would have wanted.
