Finding Home (Zak Bagans Daughter)

Chapter Two

As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, I watched my mother turn to nothing. With all the chemotherapy and radiation, her 'toned' party body and tan complexion had completely vanished. All that was left was shreds of the woman she once was left behind in the body of a frail old woman. She had lost almost a third of her weight, barely eating, and throwing up anything she did. Her primary nurse even told me that I should be preparing for the inevitable.

It's strange to admit that I hadn't cried once. I truly felt nothing. No sadness, no pain, no compassion, no empathy; nothing. I couldn't understand why I felt nothing while I watched my mother fade before my eyes.

Luckily, my mother was asked to take part in experimental cancer treatment, and it was free. However, an ICU room per night, the cost of the care necessary for my mother's treatment, and basically anything that was not included in the experimental treatment, had drained our entire savings into a little over seven dollars. We had one week to pay off our dues or we were to be left on our own by the end of the week.

I had already told dear ol' Pete we were moving out, and of course, he said we caused too much damage to the apartment and skimmed us on the damage deposit, leaving us borderline penniless. The only way we could pay for anything was by finding Marion's credit card pin and selling all the furniture we had left. That was enough to cover us for a few months, but those months were over. The only thing those months gave us was the extension of Marion's death, and me to find out a way to escape the grasps of social services once she does die.

I looked up from the plain white floor of the hospital room and looked at my mother. She couldn't do any breathing of her own, so she had machines do it for her, and even that wasn't enough. I stood up and stood beside her as she slept. Her skin hugged her bones, her cheekbones swallowed the skin around them, the dark circles in her eyes hugged the shadows, and her usual pink lips were kissed by ice. I could barely recognize the woman I was staring at.

"You're dying," I mumbled.

Her eyes slowly blinked open. Her usual light blues were empty.

She licked her lips and opened her dry mouth.

"I am."

She lifted her arm as it was carrying a weight in her hands, and brought it close to my face. Instinctively I took a step back, and for the first time in a long time, I saw compassion etched on her pale face. I took a step back toward her, and she caressed the side of my face. It wasn't till then that I noticed I was crying. I felt her thin bony fingers slide underneath my eyes and wipe the stray tears gliding down my cheeks. Why couldn't this have been the mother that raised me instead? I slowly lifted my hand from my side and cupped hers with my own, warming it with the heat of my cheek. I forgot how much I missed this Marion.

"Where have you been?" I asked softly.

"Lost." She whispered.

I waited for her to fall asleep until I left the room. She looked so peaceful. I secretly hoped she would look this peaceful when she died.

I grabbed the current book I was reading and sat down on a chair in the hallway outside her room. For once I didn't want to hear the repeated beeping sounds that echoed throughout Marion's room. Unfortunately, it was just as noisy. Nurses ran past me as the words "code blue" were shouted through the obnoxious loudspeakers, the chatting of multiple exhausted nurses, and the nonstop crying of family members to the news of losing their loved ones.

I looked down the hall to see a man holding 'get well soon' balloons and a stuffed animal as he walked into one of the rooms on the floor. Marion had nothing like that. She only had me, and I couldn't spend money on one 'get well soon' balloon even if I wanted to. The only colors that flooded her room were white with a dash of blue. Not to mention, a sign like that would just be false hope. Everyone who knew what Marion was dealing with knew there was simply no getting better.