The Kiss

         I stood in awe of the electrical wizardry in the radiologist's amphitheater. Linebacker-size cabinets lit up like Times Square stood head to head along the far wall of Dr. Clayton's state-of-the-art operating room. On a black and white monitor I watched a wire probe snake through the femoral artery, destinations: right and left carotid blood vessels of the brain. The dye injected illuminated the brain's vascular system of my mother.

            Visually I traced her mind. Slicing planes, diagonals, and cross sections of cranial matter appeared on the screen until the probe searched out the disease lodged in the communicator center. Observing the muted gray skeleton on the screen, I realized my detached concern.  For over two hours I explored the intimate picture of Mama's thinking.

            This is the house of Mama's emotions and her disease, an aneurysm.  Can the doctor see her emotional dysfunction?

            To prevent further rupturing the doctor clamped each side of the diseased vessel.

***

            Mama laid in a hospital bed in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Carved and etched into her brain were staples, the aftermath of slicing, dicing into her subarachnoid temporal lobe. Very big words. Very big medicine. Very big wound. Eighteen hours of cutting, sculpting, and stapling; and then four hours later a surgeon asked Mama, "Can you hear me?" Unable to speak, Mama raised her hand in a thumbs-up sign.

            The family, surgeons, and neurologists evaluated what functional loss was due to the cerebral hemorrhage and brain surgery. Mama's personality was flat; all her words and responses were the same prior to the surgery, but blanched of laughter and tears. At times she looked to my father to figure out an appropriate response to the doctor's questions. If Mama ever had the slightest chance of escaping my father, the chances were now permanently, surgically removed.

***

            Walking into the NICU, I stroked Mama's fleshy sixty-seven year-old, three-grown-children, and seven-grandchildren upper arm.         

            "Hi Dora. This is a terrible thing that happened."

            "No Mama. This could have been a terrible thing; now it's a miracle."        

            Then several forgotten tears tumbled from my eyes. My father seemed to grab my tears, stealing their warm comfort. His heavy chest heaved and quaked. I watched my stolen tears run down his cheeks.                  

            The following day I tried to comfort Mama. Bending over, my lips brushed hers. Her kiss startled my soul. She made repetitive sucking sounds, trying to eat my love. It was real. The kiss was Mama's first kiss to me since I was fifteen years old. It was her last kiss to me.         

            I looked up and turned away from my father who was holding my mother's hand. Many years ago before the cerebral hemorrhage, my mother was stricken with the disease of denial. She couldn’t speak nor see the wounds of my childhood. Visiting her in the hospital was the final letting go of a daughter's wish for nurturing parents. As I walked down the yellowed hospital corridor I pictured my father’s hand, I knew I lost my mother once again to the monster of my childhood. 

THE END