THROUGH MY MOTHER’S EYES – Conclusion

What would she say to me if she could? A year ago, those same eyes had opened wide as she looked at me from her hospital bed as if I had suddenly grown a tail when I shared with her my plans to begin a residency in psychiatry. Although at the time, I had not yet begun my psychiatric training, I didn’t need any such training to clearly understand what she was not able to say. Today, as a first year psychiatric resident, I am lost. “Does she see herself through my eyes? Is this why she is now refusing to look at me? If so, is she rejecting my help? Or possibly, is it some aspect of her? Does she meditate on precious hopes and dreams that will never be or on memories of a prior life?”

Even now as I take a moment to contemplate these questions and reflect on my own fleeting hopes for her full recovery, her face begins to grimace in pain and she looks at me again, this time with tears that make her eyes glisten. I swear I can almost hear her shout, “Help me!” with the ears of my heart. I bend down again, but the only thing remaining is her left foot. I suddenly notice the foot shaking up and down, not with a lot of power, but definitely shaking. “Was it shaking before?” I wonder. “Did I just notice that?” Since this was her functional or “good” foot, she wears a sneaker that nicely matches her warm-up clothes. She lets me touch it. I hold her ankle with my left hand and remove her sneaker from her foot with my right hand. I hear the familiar sound of her exhalation from the opening of her trach tube, and look up to see that crooked smile of hers.

She is smiling and looking down at me with those beautiful bright brown eyes. It is then that I realize that her sneaker laces had been tied too tightly and this is the cause of her distress. “Such a simple thing,” I think to myself. We stare at one another and our eyes speak with perfect understanding. She touches my chin with her left pointer finger, gently lifts my face up to her lips, and kisses my cheek. I laugh and cry at the same time.