Angie Pelekidis was born in Brooklyn, NY, where she's lived most of her life. She's also lived in Long Island,
Florida, Alabama, and Vestal, NY. She recently graduated with an MA in English from Binghamton University,
and is pursuing a Ph.D there. She's a reader first and foremost, who started taking her writing seriously five
years ago. Prior to that, she worked in public relations for some NYC non-profit organizations, including the
New York Aquarium.
Florida, Alabama, and Vestal, NY. She recently graduated with an MA in English from Binghamton University,
and is pursuing a Ph.D there. She's a reader first and foremost, who started taking her writing seriously five
years ago. Prior to that, she worked in public relations for some NYC non-profit organizations, including the
New York Aquarium.
I C U
My mother has finally been transferred out of the ICU and is now sharing a regular hospital room with another patient. I sit
by her bed and watch her sleep, something I've done a lot of during the past three days. The clot that caused the stroke
that brought her here became bleeding on the brain, and then swelling. This led to something called a mid-line shift, the
worst thing that could have happened according to her neurologist.
My cellphone rings, broadcasting a static-y version of a Busta Rhymes song that's utterly incongruous in such grave
surroundings. I answer it quickly to cut the music short. The caller id tells me it's my sister Trish.
"How's Mom?," she asks, without saying hello first.
"About the same."
"I wish there was something I could do. Do you want me to come up?" Trish is two hours away from Binghamton, New
York, in Poughkeepsie, where she lives with her husband Frank and their two sons. She'd come up the day Mom had the
stroke, stayed the night, and then gone back in the morning. She was in the midst of planning her mother-in-law Adele's
75th birthday party for today, and had complained about being roped into hosting the party for obnoxious Adele. But the
fact the old woman had helped her and Frank with the down payment on their latest house hadn't left her with much choice.
"No. There's nothing you can do here. When are you coming up tomorrow?"
"After I take Mom to the mall in the morning. I'll call you when I'm on my way."
It takes me a second to realize by "Mom" she means Adele, because in my unmarried mind there is only one mother.
"Fine. I'll talk to you then." I close my cellphone quickly without waiting to hear her say goodbye. In that instant I hate her,
for asking whether she should come up today, for not canceling going to the mall with her mother-in-law to be with her real
mother, and with me. But then I wonder if my anger is misplaced. Do I have cause to be angry at Trish or is frustration
over my mother's situation landing on her because there is nowhere else for it to rest?
For years, my mother and Adele have been playing a game of financial one-upmanship, competing for the title of favorite,
most-generous Grandmother. Just before Adele's house payment gift, my mother had given her oldest grandson her two
year old second car, keeping for herself the 10-year old one my Dad bought her when he was still alive. The newer car was
the last thing of any real value Mom possessed, and it was obvious now that Adele had won the game. She was alive,
healthy, and had plenty of money left to give.
The nurse wearing the large gold crucifix comes in to check my mother's temperature and vital signs. She ignores me as she
goes through her routine as though I'm invisible and I can't blame her – I feel beaten so thin you can see right through me.
"You never know how much they'll bounce back," she'd said to me earlier, with a comforting hand on my arm. "The Lord can
work miracles."
"Well, if anyone get by without their brain, it's my mom," I'd replied. "It's not like she used it much before the stroke."
She had smiled politely but hadn't laughed, and I'd made a mental note not to joke with the nurse wearing a crucifix. She'd
then explained how my mother would eventually have a tube inserted into her stomach to feed her since she wouldn't be able
to eat on her own and couldn't remain on an IV indefinitely. On the first day, the nurse with the missing molars on the left
side of her mouth had, on my mother's doctor's orders, given me a do-not-resuscitate form to sign. A third nurse, sporting
inhumanely red hair, had on the second day described a worse case scenario that involved something called "comfort
feedings," which given to someone who can't swallow leads to pneumonia and eventual death. She had called this a humane
option. I thought of it as the stroke-victim's version of a last meal only it's administered over the course of a few weeks.
In her infrequent waking moments, my mother has looked around blearily, a 71-year old infant waking from a nap. Her eyes
move about of their own free will and are unable to focus on anything. The lid of her right one, on the side that's paralyzed,
stays half-lidded, as if it's squinting into the sun.
A loud, long belch comes from Betty, the patient sharing my mother's room. The sound resuscitates my mother and her
eyes open. But her face remains blank and I wonder if her brain can decipher the sound.
"Excuse me," Betty says in the wet, crackly voice of a lifelong smoker. She's in the process of calling yet another friend or
family member, something she has been doing since I arrived at the hospital three hours earlier. My now mute mother, once
a non-stop talker herself, has gotten stuck with a chatterer as a roommate.
I peek beyond the half-opened curtain separating the beds to look at Betty. She's sitting in a chair, leaning forward to
change the channel on her small hospital TV while holding the phone to her ear. I look away to preserve a privacy she's
indifferent to but not before I catch a glimpse of her fatty, white shoulder and upper buttock where they are revealed by her
haphazardly worn hospital gown. She has the upper body of Santa Claus and the thin, delicate legs of a twelve-year old girl.
Her hair is cut severely, like a man's, and is black and gray.
I look back at my mom and notice the lines on her forehead are slightly wrinkled. The ones on her undamaged left side are
more pronounced, as if she is struggling to hear something.
"Hello, Irma? It's Betty. Not so good. It's heart failure. But listen, I've decided something," Betty says portentously.
I turn away from my mother to eavesdrop on the momentous decision Betty, who must surely be aware of her own mortality
given her situation, has arrived at. Between each sentence she lets out a hard huh exhalation that adds to the suspense like
a horror movie soundtrack.
Betty takes a long breath in and speaks: "I want my hair dyed. I don't want it gray no more. It makes me feel old."
I turn away from Betty, disappointed that that's the best she can come up with. I look at my mother and see a familiar
expression. She's looking directly at me, seeing me and knowing me. She's wearing a muted version of her look of scorn,
the one she reserves for the worst white trash on Cops or the most blatantly cheating husbands on the Judge Judy Brown
show.
I don't know exactly how much of what Betty has said that my mother understands or whether her expression is a
coincidence. But I want to believe that without words, we are sharing the same thought about poor Betty's foolish desire to
forestall death with hair dye.
My mother has finally been transferred out of the ICU and is now sharing a regular hospital room with another patient. I sit
by her bed and watch her sleep, something I've done a lot of during the past three days. The clot that caused the stroke
that brought her here became bleeding on the brain, and then swelling. This led to something called a mid-line shift, the
worst thing that could have happened according to her neurologist.
My cellphone rings, broadcasting a static-y version of a Busta Rhymes song that's utterly incongruous in such grave
surroundings. I answer it quickly to cut the music short. The caller id tells me it's my sister Trish.
"How's Mom?," she asks, without saying hello first.
"About the same."
"I wish there was something I could do. Do you want me to come up?" Trish is two hours away from Binghamton, New
York, in Poughkeepsie, where she lives with her husband Frank and their two sons. She'd come up the day Mom had the
stroke, stayed the night, and then gone back in the morning. She was in the midst of planning her mother-in-law Adele's
75th birthday party for today, and had complained about being roped into hosting the party for obnoxious Adele. But the
fact the old woman had helped her and Frank with the down payment on their latest house hadn't left her with much choice.
"No. There's nothing you can do here. When are you coming up tomorrow?"
"After I take Mom to the mall in the morning. I'll call you when I'm on my way."
It takes me a second to realize by "Mom" she means Adele, because in my unmarried mind there is only one mother.
"Fine. I'll talk to you then." I close my cellphone quickly without waiting to hear her say goodbye. In that instant I hate her,
for asking whether she should come up today, for not canceling going to the mall with her mother-in-law to be with her real
mother, and with me. But then I wonder if my anger is misplaced. Do I have cause to be angry at Trish or is frustration
over my mother's situation landing on her because there is nowhere else for it to rest?
For years, my mother and Adele have been playing a game of financial one-upmanship, competing for the title of favorite,
most-generous Grandmother. Just before Adele's house payment gift, my mother had given her oldest grandson her two
year old second car, keeping for herself the 10-year old one my Dad bought her when he was still alive. The newer car was
the last thing of any real value Mom possessed, and it was obvious now that Adele had won the game. She was alive,
healthy, and had plenty of money left to give.
The nurse wearing the large gold crucifix comes in to check my mother's temperature and vital signs. She ignores me as she
goes through her routine as though I'm invisible and I can't blame her – I feel beaten so thin you can see right through me.
"You never know how much they'll bounce back," she'd said to me earlier, with a comforting hand on my arm. "The Lord can
work miracles."
"Well, if anyone get by without their brain, it's my mom," I'd replied. "It's not like she used it much before the stroke."
She had smiled politely but hadn't laughed, and I'd made a mental note not to joke with the nurse wearing a crucifix. She'd
then explained how my mother would eventually have a tube inserted into her stomach to feed her since she wouldn't be able
to eat on her own and couldn't remain on an IV indefinitely. On the first day, the nurse with the missing molars on the left
side of her mouth had, on my mother's doctor's orders, given me a do-not-resuscitate form to sign. A third nurse, sporting
inhumanely red hair, had on the second day described a worse case scenario that involved something called "comfort
feedings," which given to someone who can't swallow leads to pneumonia and eventual death. She had called this a humane
option. I thought of it as the stroke-victim's version of a last meal only it's administered over the course of a few weeks.
In her infrequent waking moments, my mother has looked around blearily, a 71-year old infant waking from a nap. Her eyes
move about of their own free will and are unable to focus on anything. The lid of her right one, on the side that's paralyzed,
stays half-lidded, as if it's squinting into the sun.
A loud, long belch comes from Betty, the patient sharing my mother's room. The sound resuscitates my mother and her
eyes open. But her face remains blank and I wonder if her brain can decipher the sound.
"Excuse me," Betty says in the wet, crackly voice of a lifelong smoker. She's in the process of calling yet another friend or
family member, something she has been doing since I arrived at the hospital three hours earlier. My now mute mother, once
a non-stop talker herself, has gotten stuck with a chatterer as a roommate.
I peek beyond the half-opened curtain separating the beds to look at Betty. She's sitting in a chair, leaning forward to
change the channel on her small hospital TV while holding the phone to her ear. I look away to preserve a privacy she's
indifferent to but not before I catch a glimpse of her fatty, white shoulder and upper buttock where they are revealed by her
haphazardly worn hospital gown. She has the upper body of Santa Claus and the thin, delicate legs of a twelve-year old girl.
Her hair is cut severely, like a man's, and is black and gray.
I look back at my mom and notice the lines on her forehead are slightly wrinkled. The ones on her undamaged left side are
more pronounced, as if she is struggling to hear something.
"Hello, Irma? It's Betty. Not so good. It's heart failure. But listen, I've decided something," Betty says portentously.
I turn away from my mother to eavesdrop on the momentous decision Betty, who must surely be aware of her own mortality
given her situation, has arrived at. Between each sentence she lets out a hard huh exhalation that adds to the suspense like
a horror movie soundtrack.
Betty takes a long breath in and speaks: "I want my hair dyed. I don't want it gray no more. It makes me feel old."
I turn away from Betty, disappointed that that's the best she can come up with. I look at my mother and see a familiar
expression. She's looking directly at me, seeing me and knowing me. She's wearing a muted version of her look of scorn,
the one she reserves for the worst white trash on Cops or the most blatantly cheating husbands on the Judge Judy Brown
show.
I don't know exactly how much of what Betty has said that my mother understands or whether her expression is a
coincidence. But I want to believe that without words, we are sharing the same thought about poor Betty's foolish desire to
forestall death with hair dye.
Angie Pelekidis
