Saturday, May 8, 2010

A story for Mother's Day

The bond between mothers and kids can be strong, but this Mother's Day I'm thinking of a particular bond I witnessed that was excessive.

The patient was nearing 100, and her only son accompanied her to our inpatient facility. I've come to expect tears and displays of emotion in my line of work, so wasn't at first concerned with the overt tears that were constantly adorning the son's face.

But then I began to hear their story. Nearing 70 himself, the son had spent only 2 days apart from his mother in his entire life. They had never vacationed or taken trips, they just stayed, all those years, in the house... together. Well, except for the time in his 30's that he became so depressed with the thought that his mother could die, that he had to spend some time in a hospital on medication.

He'd say things like, "The sound of her breath is what gets me up in the morning, and what lulls me to sleep at night." He was constantly by her bed, holding her hand- even as he and she slept.

I've heard people say before, "I don't know how I'll live when xxx dies". But in this case, I believed it. I'm not sure what else this man had in his life besides his mother? Over the years he'd become enmeshed, and as she lay dying, he seemed to be dying as well.

So this mother's day, be reminded that there may be such a thing as too much....