I’m So Sorry Mom

By

This is my story of how my perspective in life and hope changed after reading Tuesdays with Morrie.

I got to the Hospital as fast as I could, there was my mom connected to what seemed to ne billions of wires all over her body. “Mm..Mm—Mom?” I forced the words out, she feebly opened one eye. My step dad started crying uncontrollably, but I just stood there, hard as a rock without fear to be shown, or a tear streaming down my cheek, “Be strong Mom okay? Don’t give up” I remember telling her “I’m going to die, the Doctors said I probably won’t make it through the night..” she forced her words out. “Don’t say that Mom, don’t say that ever again, if you lose hope, you lose everything.”

That was probably the most heart breaking conversation I’ve ever had in my life. It’s saddening to hear just anyone talk about life in such a subjacent matter, imagine if it you’re your mother saying this? My heart was being indulged into a void of sorrow at the sound of her defeat.

When my mom died, I lost hope for pretty much everything, and for the longest time, I thought my mom giving up, was my fault.

She always said “If I ever depend on a machine to keep me alive, unplug me” but I have finally understood that when you get old, you are going to depend on people, you’re going to feel what it is like being a baby all over again, and all you can do is enjoy like if you were one all over again. I wish I had that mentality a few years ago, so I could have told my mom, so maybe I could’ve changed her perspective.

I have personally never been afraid of dying, I am however terrified of the thought of experiencing a slow painful death, that is why the minute I saw my mom suffering and plugged in to machines, I followed her orders and told them to unplug her.

When Morrie was dying I remember reading him saying “Mitch, I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all” He never allowed himself to feel sorry about his disease, and I remember my mom on one of her many visits to the Hospital she told me to braid her hair and put lip gloss on her, she used to say even if she was going to die, she had to look fabulous, “You don’t know where I’ll go after death”

My mom reminds me of Morrie in so many ways, in how wise she was, and how calm she always remained, I just wish she had been more like Morrie in the sense that he knew he was going to die, but he never gave up on life, and sometimes I think my mom kind of did.

I never cried in front of my mom, everyone that would see her would surround her by oceans of tears, but I not once showed her a tear of mine, after I reaf Tuesdays with Morrie I came across something that Morrie said that described my feelings quite well “It’s natural to die” He said again “The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We don’t think because we’re human we’re something above nature” It is in the nature to die, but not to give up. It is okay to accept that you will die, not to give up. As I reached the end of this book, I found many tears going down my face, and the unsatisfied thought, that if I had read this book before, if I had met Morrie through this book, maybe I could’ve saved my mom from loss of hope.

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