Missing My Mother

by Maria Pinczewski-Lee

What am I going to do now, Mom?

My mom died recently—rather suddenly—after surviving emergency triple bypass surgery.

She wasn’t supposed to die. The doctors said so. I believed them. They were wrong. They often are. They’re only human. They make mistakes. They miscalculated. They didn’t think she was going to die.

She promised me she was going to work real hard at getting better. She squeezed my hand. She waved goodbye. She told me she loved me. She told me not to cry. She told me to go home. I did.

Then she got worse. I never got to talk to her again. She became unresponsive. She didn’t wake up. Her arteries in her brain were all blocked. They called it a stroke. I think she just went to sleep.

I couldn’t believe it when my brother called me to tell me that “the hospital called, mom passed at 5 this morning.”

I cried. I wondered: “What am I going to do now, Mom? Who’s going to hold me when I want to cry? Who’s going to tell me that everything’s going to be OK? You’re not here to tell me that, now. What am I going to do now, Mom?”