Counting

My mother is very direct. That's why we're friends.

Once, while drunk on maternal recognition of my maturity, I slipped on a casual reference to some collegiate bedhopping I'd done. I figured, hell, she was just Catholic, she wasn't dead. I expected some kind of motherly admonishment because she's into that, but she just looked at me. And then she said:

"Lisa, I spent two weeks watching your uncle die of AIDS. We got there at the very end when he was at his very worst. Once, I remember a nurse was putting a breathing tube down his throat, and she said, 'Does it hurt? Are we in pain?' And he shook his head no. But when I asked him, I said, 'John, are you okay? Does it hurt?' He shook his head yes and closed his eyes and went with it, because that's all that any of us could do, really.

And when it looked like he was going to be on a respirator permanently, we got together as a family and we gave him two weeks and I sat there in the hospital room and I said:

John
You've got two weeks left, honey, you better pull out of it . . .
John
You've got eight days left . . .
six days . . .
four days . . .
You've got two days left, John . . .

Until we had to let him go.

And frankly, Lisa, I don't think that a little piece of latex is too much to ask for the sake of your body and your mother's peace of mind."

My mother's direct, boy. That's why we're friends.

Lisa Buscani

Jangle, Tia Chucha Press. Copyright 1992 by Lisa Buscani. Used with permission of the author.