thinking of my mother…
It was 37 years ago today that my life changed, completely and rapidly, when my mother died of a ruptured aneurysm in her brain, after less than 24 hours in the hospital. I remember that day beginning as a typical Thursday in the life of a 17-year-old gay boy in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio. I suppose I would have been happy; senior year was almost finished, I was excelling in school, graduating in the top 10 of my class, and would be a featured speaker at our graduation ceremony.
The memories come more sharply into focus that afternoon. I arrived at our split-level house in Brittany Heights sometime after 5pm, as I had play practice or another extracurricular activity that kept me after school. I parked my car, entered the house through the garage, and went upstairs. I looked down the hallway and to my sister’s closed door, perhaps she had music playing, perhaps not, and there was my mother lying on the floor, half in the bathroom and half out with her head turned away from me. I ran to her and noticed the back of her jeans were wet. It seems she had gone to sit down on the toilet and then stood up, only to collapse. Her face looked peaceful but I knew all was not okay.
I pounded on my sister’s door to ask what had happened. My sister was 13 at the time and she and my mother had been having a rough time, much as any mother would with a teenage daughter. I ran across the street to ask a family friend for help since she was an EMT with the Monroe Fire Department. The ambulance arrived, my father was called, and we ended up at the hospital. The neurosurgeon assigned to my mother, Dr. Carlos Ongkiko (I’ve never forgotten his name, the deliverer of such devastating news), told us she had a major aneurysm burst in her head and they were doing everything they could to treat her. We left the hospital in a daze, me too young to think about my dad and how hard that must have been to lie alone in their bed, wondering if he was going to lose his 41-year-old wife.
The next day, we went to school as usual, and of course everyone had heard what happened. I was in Mr. Pretty’s world history class, sometime in the late morning, when a voice crackled on the intercom. It was the principal asking the teacher to send me to the office. I knew it had to be bad, and indeed, I was told that I would be escorted to the hospital by the assistant principal. They said the doctor wanted my entire family at the hospital. The first scene that appears in my head is with my dad and me sitting in a room with the doctor. Was my sister there too, or not? I don't remember. He explained that she had an aneurysm burst in her brain and so much blood had flooded the brain, that there was nothing more they could do. Nothing more they could do. Those cold, clinical words ring in my head as crystal clear today as they did that chilly November Friday long ago.
The doctor asked if we wanted to donate my mom’s organs and my dad, without hesitation, said yes. We later got a letter from the hospital telling us people had received her heart, corneas, skin, and other organs. I remember walking, or running, down a very long hallway that in my memory never seems to end. But then I came upon a room full of people, friends, teachers, all now a blur of faces. I remember my drama teacher, Mrs. S. Darbyshire, giving me a long hug and saying how sorry she was and that everyone was there to support me.
The next days and weeks are lost to the mists of time, but we had a visitation and a funeral and I saw her casket sitting atop a gravesite at a cemetery in Monroe, where my dad is also buried, having passed away in March 2019. I remember lots of friends being around and people at our house. There were no digital photos back then, and I don’t think it would have been proper to take pictures at a funeral, but I have boxes of mementos, like the book from her funeral and newspaper clippings.
I was soon graduating from high school and moving on with my life. My dad and my sister remained in that house, trying to make sense of what happened, my sister just about to start high school. My dad was incapable of living alone and my sister and I ran roughshod over him. I did my best to keep him on an even keel, but he lost control of my sister and she went on to have a troubled high school experience. I went to Ohio State in Columbus for two years, before moving back to our house on Sands Avenue in late 1990. I had to wrap up loose ends from my mother’s passing and see that my father and sister could take care of themselves. I spent one semester at Miami University in Middletown, and then moved to Clifton and started at University of Cincinnati in January 1991. I graduated in September 1992 with my B.A. degree in only one extra semester after switching three times.
On occasion, I wonder what my life would have turned out like had my mother not left this earth 37 years ago. But alas, nothing will change what was, and so any time spent wondering what could have been is not spent being grateful for the path my life has taken. Paula was a remarkable woman and I’m lucky I had her for the first 17 years of my life. She’s the reason I am the man, the husband, the friend, the citizen that I am today.
