I want my mom. I just want to lie my head in her lap, let her rub my back, and take a break. This is how I feel every time I get sick, when I feel overwhelmed, and lately, when I hear the stories of suffering that the coronavirus pandemic has caused.
I miss her all the time, but I can feel the creep of anxiety when I think about how stressful it would have been to manage her multiple conditions in the midst of this .Still, I crave the woman who stopped breathing 12 years ago, on an otherwise unremarkable day in February.
I held her when she collapsed, watched her have a seizure, and soon after, watched her leave this world. As I promised her we would be, we were in the home I grew up in, surrounded by family.In the years leading up to that.