- It really was no big deal.
My husband was looking at pictures of our morning.
I had taken my mother to sit along the lake bluff of Lake
Michigan.
And I had taken my son with me and we picked her up and it
was a beautiful day and the sun was hitting us and I caught
the wind blowing my mother's hair and not even a cheap phone
camera could ruin the moment.
So he's looking through these pictures.
And my mother is in hospice,
which means she has a wheelchair,
which means she has to be lifted in and out of places.
And he wants to know who got her there. So he says,
“How did your mother get there?”
My son says, mom did it.
My husband says, you're kidding.
He says, Nope.
Did you forget? She's Colombian?
[Audience Laughing]
That's the answer. My kids give to everything that I do.
She's Colombian.
[Audience Laughing]
Now growing up Colombian. I got to see what that meant.
My mother was an immigrant. She had six children.
She was a single mother.
She worked three jobs to give us everything.
But because of that,
she was hardly home and I missed her and I wanted her and I
wished for her, but she was working.
My mother is in hospice because her kidneys are failing.
The doctor says that maybe because of her age, she'll have,
we'll have her for three more months, maybe six,
but he forgets. She's Colombian too.
[Audience Laughing]
So 18 months later, we are,
[Audience Laughing],
we are at lake Michigan, sitting on the bluff.
I take my mother to these places and we're enjoying our days
together. And on this last day, I take her over to the wall,
wishing fountain in front of hospice. There's a fountain.
And, and when you're an immigrant,
you don't know what's Colombian and you don't know what's
American.
And you think everybody does things the way you do.
But we can't pass a fountain without throwing in coins
and seeing our wishes out loud.
So we parked in front of the phone before I take her back up
to her room and I hand her some coins and she throws her
coins in the fountain and she shouts "Hawaii!"
[Audience Laughing]
And she does it with such force that I don't know that she,
if she's really pissed off
because she never got to go to "Hawaii!"
And I don't want to get her more pissed off because
she's dying.
So I take my coin and I say, "Hawaii," just in case.
So we make our wishes and we're throwing in our coins.
- And we're tossing and we're like maniacs
and we're laughing.
And I look at her and I fall in love with my mom.
I have not had a chance to be with her my entire life.
And I have her and I don't even need to make any more
wishes. I have my wish.
I've got her, but she keeps,
she keeps throwing in her coins and she's got this innocence
and exuberance in her face and she's talking.
And all of a sudden she looks at me and she says,
"Do you sing and dance?"
And I don't have the heart to tell her that not only do I
not sing and dance, but I'm really bad at both of them.
[Audience Laughing]
But she wants me to say yes.
And she looks at me like I have to say yes. And I go, yeah,
[Audience Laughing]
I even do shows.
[Audience Laughing And Clapping]
And she says, you look like you could.
So I take her back up to her room and she is doing so good
that I decide tomorrow. We can have another big day.
I'm going to take her shopping with my youngest son for back
to school. I kissed her on the forehead.
I take her back and I tell her, I'll be back in the morning.
Nine o'clock, be ready. At 8:20
my phone rings the next morning at my house.
And it's the hospice center.
And the only other time they've called is when she refused
to have a male nurse, give her a bath.
But I pick up the phone and I don't start breathing until I
hear her in the background and she's alive.
But she's screaming. No, no, the nurse says,
your mother's sick.
You have to come.
The hospice center is only eight minutes away.
So I rush over. And as soon as the elevator doors open,
I can hear her. I go in her room, the nurse says,
"Your mother's kidneys are done.
We need to start the comfort procedure."
Now months ago, months ago,
my mother has signed these forms,
asking for a comfort procedure.
Meaning when things end there is to be no hospital and we
just let things go.
But she signed those papers when she used to be sick and
she's not sick anymore.
We were just at the lake and we're going to go shopping
today.
So when I see the nurse leaning into my mother and say,
"Soon, Lenore, you will have your relief.
Soon."
I do something that I still can't believe.
I step in between the nurse and my mother and in our secret
language: Spanish.
[Audience Laughing]
So that the nurse can't understand.
I say, tell her no,
tell her you're going shopping and tell her no.
Tell her you want the hospital.
Tell her you changed your mind.
My mother grunts hospital, I say to the nurse,
you heard that she wants to go to the hospital.
The nurse says you can't. This is her wish.
And I think how I had my wish for the past 18 months.
And I know I was only supposed to have my mother for six
months, but I have her for 18 and it has made me greedy.
And I am ready to beg,
borrow and steal for one more minute with her.
But I turn and in English this time, I say, "It's okay.
You can go."
I asked the nurse how long my mother will have after the
morphine starts. She says, two days.
Six days later
my mother is still with us because why does everyone keep
forgetting where Colombian.
When she passes away, I'm there.
And I want to say something,
but I become a little four year old and I'm calling her
back. "Mama, mama."
The nurse puts her hand on my arm and she says,
just think of the life you gave her that she found it so
hard to leave.