This is what I mean by that: After the first stroke, she had an awareness of her surroundings, but didn't know why she was in the hospital. "So, what happened to me?" she would ask. "Why am I here?" And someone would tell her she had a stroke, and that she would need to stay in the hospital until she recovered. "I don't know how that happened," she often said, as if it were her, or anybody's, fault. Then, a little later, she would have forgotten that she had asked that question, and ask it again.
At one point, I watched her lying in bed, looking at the ceiling. And I wondered about her consciousness in that moment. Was she in mental anguish? She had some physical pain -- did that occupy all of her thoughts, or did she also wonder at her circumstances, lament her lost spot at the kitchen table, grow impatient with the insubordination of her body? Watching a person in a hospital, and actually, hospitals in general, is a sad thing. If you're in a hospital as a patient, what else can you possibly think, if you're in possession of all your mental acuity, other than "Get me the hell out of here"?
As for the moments of "resigned comedy" I mentioned earlier, these were mainly as a result of the Phantom Bar that lay over Oma's leg. Her brain was lying to her, telling her that her leg was underneath a heavy bar. "If someone would get this bar off my leg, I might be able to get some sleep," she would say. We attempted to convince her that her leg was loose and free, partly by instructing her to look at it, but she would forget soon after. "Would you get this bar off my leg, please?" In this respect, I suppose, her brain was also insubordinate. A few of us briefly considered an alternate strategy: telling her that the bar was there because the hospital required it, and to just try to forget it. Ultimately nothing worked: the words and promises of others are nothing compared to the feelings in one's body, which is almost always true, isn't it?
Um, when it's all written out like that, it doesn't seem so funny. I guess you have to be there.
At about 10 PM on the night before I came back to California, my mother found time to come away from the hospital to make me my favorite meal. She felt bad that she hadn't found time to do so earlier . In a way, this act itself was a testament to the life Oma's lived so far: it demonstrates a simple desire to please a family member, the same desire that has all of Oma's children and grandchildren in the hospital to visit her, and in the case of my mother and aunts, to sit by her bedside at all hours through the night and day. As a mother and a person, you've done something right when all your children are there in your hours of sickness, not out of obligation but out of love.
When I said goodbye to Oma, the night before leaving, she said to me, "Have a nice life." My mom thought maybe she meant "Have a nice flight," since she repeated the latter a number of times more, but even so-- if that's the last memory I have of her, then it's certainly fitting: she said it with her beautiful smile, her voice, as always, gentle with affection.
