Growing up, my mother has always been a big part of my life. She always seemed to know what to say to comfort me when times were tough. As I was growing up, my mother and I would argue a lot and I would get hit a lot, grounded, and punished for being disrespectful. I didn’t realize the things I had, I was in a big rush to grow up, and I didn’t enjoy my childhood as I should’ve. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I couldn’t be a kid, I just chose not to.
During this time, my grandfather was in and out of the hospital until finally in ’97, they amputated his left leg due to diabetes. Diabetes runs in my family, between my uncle, my mother, and my grandfather. After that he was placed in dialysis going three times a week. My mother and me used to take him to dialysis Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When I was fourteen I took my mother’s truck and went joy riding and lost control causing me to flip the truck and crash .I was taken to the hospital.
Later that day my mother and I were laying in bed talking about what I had done, being that we were both shaken up about the whole incident. Around 11:30, the police arrived and I was arrested for taking my mother’s truck. I think at that moment, my mother died inside to see me being placed in handcuffs. My grandfather being the strong man that he was could not bear to see me at that moment, and I noticed a tear come down his face .At that moment I knew it was all too real. I was brought in for taking my mother’s truck and released to my mother later that night. Thing’s changed from there on. It wasn’t the same anymore, my mother had a hard time getting back and fourth to work, plus the problem’s she already had before at her job, it made it even worse.
She had diabetes and didn’t take care of herself .She would have these night’s that she would have these pain’s that she couldn’t stand. Crying and trying to hold on till finally we would go to the hospital and we would sit there for hours and hours until finally were attended. But the situation only got worse. With my grandfather going to dialysis and my mother in and out of the hospital, I was at home causing more problems. I would leave and be out in the street goofing off and trying to get away from home. At the time, all there was arguments and yelling and screaming, I wanted to get away from it all.
Thru out all this my mother’s condition wasn’t getting any better and well they amputated her left leg and later on her right. She was placed in a nursing home to complete rehabilitation. At first it was great and she was going thru the program but she started getting back in her old ways, she didn’t take care of herself. I wasn’t was doing so good my self, I was constantly getting suspended from school for fighting and skipping school and being sent home to hang out cause that’s all I did. I was kicked out of school and my uncle and aunt took me in on his side town and placed me in school to keep out of trouble. Since I did stay out of trouble but I was doing horrible in school and the same thing over and over again. I had a hard time staying concentrated in class so I would act out .I wish thing’s were different but it wasn’t.
I would go to the nursing home and visit my mother to see how she was doing. Meanwhile my grandfather wasn’t doing to good and his condition seemed to get worse and worse. All my life he’s been a strong man and for me to see him the way he was, was hard, and I know he felt the same for himself.
It came to a point where the dry told us he had a short time to live and that it would be in our best interest that we gather our closest family members together to be here for him. My grandfather’s only wishes was that my cousin, which was at the time stationed in Germany serving in the Air Force. He wanted to him to be there for his last few hours. My cousin came on special leave so that he could be there for my grandfather. My cousin and I swell as my uncle stood around the room where my grandfather was and spoke with him and tried to connect with him, but he really couldn’t speak, but we knew he understood, he would smile and I held his hand, and so did my cousin.
He always ever since I was little boy managed to be a strong man, he would be outside cutting the grass or working with the car’s and he never complained about pain, I would give him a handshake and he would squeeze my hand hard .I of course would laugh and smile, so when I looked at him in the hospital bed and we held his hand he smiled at each other, I smiled because I felt him trying to squeeze my hand. I got a little teary eyed and stood there with him in his last minutes he had with us on this earth .I honestly think he was a happy man even when he left, even though he couldn’t speak, I could tell in his eyes, like he didn’t have any pain or anything, he was happy to see his three boys.
We came out of the room and I went to speak with my uncle and I looked at him and I just reached out for a hug and he cried and cried and I never seen him cry before, cause just like grandfather he had always been a strong man.
To lose a parent is the most horrible feeling one can ever have and I was hurt but I didn’t realize how bad it was until I lost my mother. My mother after my grandfather passed seemed to have just lost hope in life, gave up didn’t have any ambition or feeling’s to want to live anymore. You can see her smile but deep inside she was crushed. My mother and my grandfather argued when I was child but she was always daddy’s little girl. Loved and spoiled as a child but always loved, so to see her father pass, it damaged her deeply inside.
I knew she loved me and no matter what I did she never would’ve left my side, but I felt as if she didn’t care anymore. I could see it in her face. A couple month’s later I was attending an adult school trying to get my i.e. and she was still in the rehab and I would go visit her to see how she was doing and we would sit for hours talking about memories we had of me as a child and when I would act out .I was a kid just like any other, I like to hangout and play ball with friends and get girl’s.
My mother was afraid of me growing up I guess cause she always had a short leash on me, and in a way it was good but in a way it kept me learning thing’s on my own. I loved my mother to death. My mother had gotten out of dialysis and wasn’t feeling to good and they rushed her to the hospital there she was rushed into surgery. Coming out of surgery she had been placed under too much anesthesia and couldn’t remember me .We waited for two weeks hoping it would go away. I would come everyday and hang out with her.
Talk to her, cry with her, laugh with her, tell her I love her even though she didn’t remember me, she would sit there and smile with me and joke around. One day I received a phone call day from the nursing home saying she remembered who I was and that she wanted to see me, that she missed me and she loved me .I rushed to the nursing home and stood with her all day .I gave her the biggest hug ever and kissed her and told her how much I loved her, oh I loved her so much .It was a Saturday and we spent most of the day together till almost twelve at night when I went home.
I did the same on Sunday, but I cam home a little bit earlier so I can spend some time with the family .We were planning on picking her up on Monday so she spend the day with me at home, I was going to cook for her and watch movies with her, but we didn’t get to do that. We received a phone call at 430 in the morning that my mother had passed away. She had passed on the way to the hospital.
They made revived her three times and the last time she didn’t come out of it leaving this world September 2, 2007 .I lost my mind, I was seventeen years and I could not even begin to imagine what was going on. Family and friends came to the house and we had coffee and smoked new ports all morning. I went to see her in the hospital bed and she seemed so sad, like if she knew she was leaving and she was upset that she did. I don’t know how I managed that day, everything seemed like a blur, I smoked maybe forty new ports that day and drank more coffee than any man should ever drink and I couldn’t get it in my head that she was gone. It didn’t hit till the day of the burial where I held the casket that realized this is all real. I cried and cried and cried and could not even hold myself together. I’ve realized that the best things in life are free, and I managed to take that for granted. Even till this day I sit and think about the good time’s cause all you can really think of, and I smile sometimes at the thing’s my mother would say to me to make me smile when I was having a bad day.
She really loved me and even though I got hit as a kid and beaten, it was discipline well taught, I needed it those time’s that I got out of line and even thru all of that I wish she was here with me. To lose a mother is a horrible experience, to lose anyone in general is horrible. I lost many friend’s in high school, but to loose a mother, well there’s nothing or nobody patch that up or cover that pain. It’s deep inside you and weather they know it or everybody known’s it, you always know it. Its not like a cut that you put a band aid over cause it’s not.
I’ve realized now being twenty-one, four years later that even though she’s not here, she will always be there believe it or not, and it’s ok to cry cause we all need a good cry once and a while but it’s all part of healing, live to never forget but to remember the good in those who are no longer here with us. In my case I cherish those valuable moment’s I’ve had with my grandfather and my mother and it’s up to me make them happy, and I know that now. I thank god for giving me such a wonderful mother. I loved her and I still do. My name is Emmanuel Rodriguez and if your reading this, thank you for taking the time to do so and god bless.
