Farrago

My mother, Markie, lay for hours on a stretcher in the hall outside the emergency room, waiting for a referral for treatment from the doctor who never came. It seems so unfair to pass away on “diversion” from the bigger, better hospital. That is the term hospitals use for turning a patient away due to overcrowding in the ER. Or perhaps it was because she had no insurance. It didn’t matter. We got there too late after the doctor’s call. By 2:30 a.m. she was gone. It was Marathon Day, Boston, April 16, 2002. Markie was very sick anyway, but having to leave this world on a stretcher outside a treatment room seemed a sorry end to a long, mostly reclusive, sad life. She left behind three children whom she did not raise and who were as confused by her in death as they were by her in life. But even in illness, and mental illness, on her death bed and throughout her life, Markie Byron Roberts had style. In the end she went quietly, politely, and silently to the other side leaving us to wonder what her life, and our lives, might have been like if she had been with us all along. My name is Diana. I was named for my mother’s youngest sister, Diana Byron, whom my mother said was murdered at the age of 25. I am Diana Byron Roberts. I am the oldest of my deceased mother’s three children-four if you count the miscarriage she had between me and my next younger brother, George. My youngest brother, Cameron, stood next to our mother’s lifeless head, weeping silently. My daughter, Page, was there, holding strong because she knew her mother did not know what or how to feel. George, the middle brother, was not there because he could never be in places where emotions might open up a floodgate of childhood memories. I briefly touched the hair and patted the face of the woman who brought me into this world. But I could not cry for the woman who never raised me. There we were huddled together in a semi-private room next to someone who was comatose but not dead, at least not yet. Her face, barely visible above the stained white sheet and pale blue blanket, was the same color as Markie’s bloodless blanched face. Ironic that in death Markie looked the same now as she did in life. Her face in life, always covered in white, white, white talcum powder, now in death seemed unchanged and inscrutable as that of a porcelain doll. As if by design, the walls of the Needham Deaconess Hospital also matched the skin color of the two patients in the double room. Except that the walls were peeling in many places, exposing plaster and iron pipes in some cases. Off and on I wondered about how my mother’s face would peel underground and if the worms would render her pock marked and wrinkled like the decaying walls of the hospital. The hospital in the early morning was completely quiet except for the sound of TVs left on by night nurses and the occasional beep of a bedside monitor. I felt as if I could hear IVs dripping everywhere, mocking the silence all around me. A nurse’s aide came by to close the curtains around Markie’s bed to shield her roommate from what had just occurred. She told us we could stay as long as we needed to. I kept thinking that’s what Markie did: she stayed as long as she needed to. Eighty-five years was a long time on earth for a woman who had been committed six times to mental institutions since her teens and had endured 36 shock treatments, none of her own choosing. In the last days she talked about wanting to join our father George up in heaven. This was the last will and testament of a woman who claimed the biggest accomplishment in life was divorcing her husband not once but twice. That and avidly maintaining what she called a healthy disbelief in God. So what exactly did she really do with her time on this planet? She did not spend it much with me. Several days before her death I sensed it was time to steal an afternoon from work to drive to Needham to visit her and to begin hospice care. I came with flowers and a smile, although inside I was very anxious about what was happening. The sun was shining through the curtainless window which was open, allowing in the fresh spring air. There would be a great start for the Boston Marathon tomorrow. Only later would I remember her parting words to me. The nurse came by again, this time to say we could stay as long as we wanted. I could not wait to leave. I did not need to stay any longer. I left the room first and the others followed. The sun would soon be up and the Boston Marathon would begin in Hopkinton. I wished I could be running the 26 mile race that day instead of having to face arrangements for my mother’s farewell.