
Wishing Things Could Have Been Different for Her.
There is a lot about my mother’s illnesses I don’t know, but I heard she was born with medical issues. She was a preteen when she was diagnosed with Tuberculosis(an infectious disease).
My mother would spend time in a children’s sanatorium as a teenager. The children’s sanatorium was where my mother went when she couldn’t attend regular school because of her illnesses. It was in this sanatorium she became acquainted with my father. Anyways the sanatorium was close by where family members could easily visit her.
As a young adult, my mother had pulmonary hypertension and a history of Sarcoidosis of the lymph nodes, liver, spleen, and lungs. My mom also had some severe heart concerns; I am unsure if her heart issues were related to the Sarcoid.
I wish things could have been different for my mother; her illnesses were very intrusive and challenging. Her medical conditions from birth took so much from her emotionally and physically. The daily discomforts and persistent pain limited her ability to be a mother, which probably caused depression to settle in.
I remember a story Mama(my great-grandmother) told me about my mother going out one Friday night with friends.
She said my mother was so excited about going out. That evening my mom put on her favorite navy blue slacks and white ruffled blouse. After she had dressed, she relieved her hair of the elastic that held her ponytail, which allowed her hair to drape fashionably below her shoulders.
That evening should have been lovely for my mother. But she got sick in the middle of the movie. Mama said my mother was very disappointed when she came home; it was a long time before my mother tried to go out like that again.
My mother had me when she was 18; my mother married my stepdad sometime after I was born. And sometime after that, my younger sister was born. And nine months after my baby sister was born, our mother died.
I was five, but I remember how sick my mom was the day my sisters and I saw her last. Her frail body unsteady as she traveled back and forth to the bathroom, where she would vomit up her illnesses. She deteriorated quickly; that evening, a yellow cab rushed her and my stepdad to the hospital, where she died a few days later. My mother was 25 years old. Is it wild that after 58 years, I still miss her? I guess I will always miss her.
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