The Best Day

Laura Dicaronimo

My mom always called my birth the best day of her life. To celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday, my mother wrote me a poem. Something written in love is always special, but my mother was a wonderful writer. In the poem, she talked about the origin of my name, the right angle of the "L" providing the backbone for the "aura," all coming together to create me, Laura! I told her it was the best birthday gift I had ever received. This is a big deal because my mom always made sure my birthday felt like a national holiday, parties with friends with cake and water balloons were the norm, and when I was older, we would always find the nicest restaurants, the prettiest drives, the loudest karaoke bars to celebrate in.

Mom was always a huge advocate of celebration, even though life had given her little to celebrate. Although my mother, father, and I were insanely poor, my mom—with an Aries' typical diehard optimism— always insisted we were "middle class." My dad was in many ways a question mark to me. Even though he was present for my childhood he wasn't emotionally present the same way mom was. He played in bands and prioritized his time away from family over time in the backyard with us.

Mom met my dad in high school and had married in their mid-20s. Their relationship lasted for thirty years before disbanding, and while it is not my story to tell, it was painful for my mom to a depth that I don't think even I was aware of. My dad had profound mental health struggles and even as mom was glad that a bad marriage was ending, she was still empathetic to him and did her best to make sure he was taken care of financially and emotionally. She had many sleepless nights worrying about him as he struggled with first health problems, then homelessness. His rock bottom was a lesson for me in both advocacy and letting go: I made phone calls to find him a place to sleep, but respected that he was a contrarian to the core and sometimes the best way to advocate for him was to let him be himself.

While my mom and I were both depressed, the experience brought us closer together. And although my mother was clearly dealing with a great deal of stress, she continued to believe that a good attitude and hard work would see her through. So, she worked her usual forty-hour weeks, did her usual meditations, and thought the worst was over.

Her stroke came out of nowhere. I was in my office waiting for a friend to call and tell me to pick up her wedding favors, so when the phone rang, I picked right up. A voice I didn't recognize asked my name, asked me if I was Susan's daughter. I confirmed. They told me my mother was in the hospital and had had a stroke, could I get there? I said of course. The woman paused. I heard her sigh. "Drive safe, but you'll want to make it fast." When I got to the hospital two women were waiting by the emergency room doors. They looked tense, arms crossed, eyes scanning the crowd. Instinctively I went to them. "I'm Sue's daughter, where is she?" I couldn't help but almost scream the words. Nobody took issue with my tone. The woman who I would later learn was the chaplain just put her arms around my shoulders and led me in.

My mom's lifeless body was on the table in front of me. She had been dead at that point for almost an hour; there was no denying it. Her skin was pale like the surface of the moon, utterly desolate. The chaplain and nurse were so gentle in their questions about my mom's beliefs in the afterlife. They were so soft with me when they asked if I wanted them to keep giving her CPR. Why did I apologize when I told them that I wasn't ready to lose her yet? It was as if I was afraid it was impolite to fight for her life. Although she needed to be moved to a better-equipped hospital, a life flight was out of the question because it was starting to rain. And so, I found myself desperately trying to follow the speeding ambulance through the growing gloom.

At the next hospital, they asked if I wanted them to shock my mom's heart back into rhythm, and when I answered affirmatively, they tried to make me leave the room. "It can be very hard to watch." "It can be very hard to hear." Also, there was the risk she would die. All I said was: "I can't let her die alone." The doctor nodded as though he understood and said, "Let's go." In retrospect, this was the first massive kindness we were to be given, though I didn't feel it's depth in that moment. To be allowed to do something simply because it's what I owed her as my mom felt was a huge courtesy that we wouldn't always be given.

A doctor was holding paddles that had brought electricity to my mom's heart and got it beating properly. There were four other people working frantically to make sure my mom would survive, and I am thankful to them on a profound level. But half a decade later and what I remember most clearly of this moment was the look the nurse was giving me. Pity, but soft pity, the pity you give someone when they don't know just how bad things are, yet.

As I sat in the corner, a nurse by my side, I noticed my mom's breasts were exposed as they worked on her. I was talking to the nurse, just rambling. I said, "Oh, my God, my mom's soul won't even come back to her body. I think she would rather die than have her whole boob exposed to a room full of strangers." The nurse calmly walked through the fracas surrounding my mom and covered her breasts with a blanket. I started wailing, thanking her over and over again.

She was smiling gently but there were tears in her eyes, too. She laughed and said "Don't worry about it! I'd feel the same way as her." For that nurse to identify with her patient right then is something I think about every time I meet a nurse. To have that much empathy for a woman who you had only ever met as a corpse showed me the depths of what empathy could look like. That nurse's name is Danielle, and I will never forget her. I never saw her again after that.

My mom wound up surviving, but she was in a coma. I was fortunate to have a job that let me work remotely, and I was constantly next to my mom's bed. I would wake up contorted in a chair with another chair in front of it. I would wait for the nurses and doctors to come by and run tests or draw blood, so I could try to get a handle on what to expect. A social worker would come by and ask what our plan was. I didn't know what our plan was. It was the end of the month, should I bother to pay her rent? Would she ever go back to her third-floor apartment? I didn't ask any questions. I didn't know what questions to ask that could even be answered.

Occasionally a nurse would tell me I should go home and get some rest. Occasionally a doctor would say something like "We're in this for a marathon, not a sprint, you need to save your energy." For what? I wondered. For a funeral? To have my mom live with us? To not simply fall over and die myself? I was being too polite an advocate, I wasn't advocating. I was too intimidated by doctors to ask them to pause over some detail with me. I felt like a statue, uselessly growing moss over my unmoving limbs while someone would stop in front of me, look me over, then say nothing. Nobody ever did any meaningful follow-up with me.

Not once were we offered outside resources for families of people with traumatic brain injuries. Not once was it suggested that we find a support group. Not one mention was ever made of the myriad nonprofits and social service agencies that could've helped us. I felt hopelessly adrift in a world that would simply chew my mom and me up and spit us out, the bills were already piling up and her landlord was already stressing me about when he could expect payment because "even if there's nobody living up there, I still have to make my mortgage." I paid her rent, which I could not afford on top of my own bills, and cried. My heart couldn't accept what I was starting to logically realize: that our lives were about to be completely turned upside down with no safety net.

It was my fault no one answered my questions. I was too afraid to ask them. I was too panicked to have words. I was too overwhelmed to have ideas. So instead, I was curled up in a ball in a chair, taking up as little space as possible. The next time you see a person not asking questions, ask yourself a question: how can I help? What do they need to know?

Four days into my mom's coma, my husband and I had tickets to a concert in Boston. I was beside myself. I loved this band and I had been looking so forward to a fun night out with my husband before our world shattered. I was devastated because I knew deep down, that this wouldn't just be something I'd miss to take care of my mom, it was just the first thing. The first of many. I would watch the sun set from her window that day and my body wouldn't have danced, my lungs wouldn't have shouted out cathartic lyrics. Okay. I could do this for her. She had done so much for me as a child, what's one night? I was sitting next to her bed, just staring into space as usual when one of her nurses came in, his name was Josh. He had been kind to me before this, showing interest in the CDs I was playing for my mom and overall being really polite to me.

He asked how I was doing and I said, "Honestly man can I bitch for a second?" He laughed and said, "Well if anyone can, you can". He was right! "Look, "I said, going into rant mode "I have tickets to see Cohead tonight. And I know it's so fucking stupid, but I wanna go. I'm so scared and miserable and if she dies when I'm out I would never forgive myself. But I am so fucking sick of this room..." Josh was laughing openly at that point and I interrupted myself "I know, I know, the world's biggest asshole can't hold it together for one more night?"

"Laura", he said "Are you secretly a cardiac surgeon?" I shook my head. "Then what are you going to do if you DO stay here? We are going to be the ones that take care of her, if anything we'll just want you out of the way. If she's going to go tonight, she's going to go tonight if you're here or not. You're still alive." I blinked. I knew I was still alive, thank you. "You're going to have to keep living."

I went to the concert. I tried my best to have a good time, but my heart was still next to my mom's bed. What this nurse gave me, though, was the beginning of a very important lesson for me as an advocate. Sometimes, doing your best means knowing what you can't do. Means knowing when to try to catch your breath. Getting this permission from a medical professional to step away for a moment was one of the biggest gifts I was given early in my mom's recovery. It was more than the empty encouragement to rest I'd been getting from doctors who barely looked over their reading glasses to admonish me. It was someone who waw taking the time to see me and make a specific recommendation about a specific circumstance.

Eventually, Mom was well enough to go to a rehab facility. This felt like a monumental victory for us. She sometimes was still confused, thinking that the letters on a keyboard she saw were teeth, or being terrified of passing helicopters thinking she was to be put in one. The mood was tentatively optimistic as I and a few nurses got her checked into her room. "Name?" one of the nurses asked. Mom answered accurately. "Day of the week?" the nurse asked, and mom wasn't sure but at that point, well, it was late. Confusion was understandable. They asked a couple more questions and then handed my mom the pen to sign herself in. Her elegant fingers enclosed it and then stopped. Mom laughed softly, her awkward chuckle I remembered from moments of slight embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she said, voice soft, "I'm not quite sure how to do this..." There was a hellish moment where neither the nurses nor I said anything. Then, cheerfully I said "No worries, Mom, let me help ya out. We'll get you figured out." And I took the pen and signed her in. I said I had to use the restroom and managed to get about five steps out of the room before I completely broke down. I started crying and shaking. A nurse led me to a small room and put her arms around my shoulders. I kept trying to explain to her that Mom was a writer. That she had written beautiful poems and insightful articles and now she couldn't even sign her name. The nurse sat with me for a moment, then had to attend to a patient.

Now, years later, I know that fine motor skills are often impacted by a stroke. Mom can now sign her name no problem. I wish that someone had told me in that moment, or before, about common issues for stroke patients. If I had known more about what to expect, this moment wouldn't have felt as bleak and alienating. I didn't know how to address it with Mom; I didn't want to make her feel worse about losing such a fundamental skill. Nobody stepped in then, or ever, to help me communicate with her about what struggles she may face, what's normal or not.

Weeks passed. Middle of July. My birthday. I'd barely slept the night before; the depression had a strong hold on me at that point and it didn't feel like I had anything to celebrate. Unbeknownst to me, Mom also barely slept the night before. She was awake and she was causing a ruckus at her rehab. "I have to call my daughter! It's her birthday!". They held her off from calling me until 8 AM. When we did talk, I was amazed. "Mom, how did you remember?" My mom laughed "Well you are my only child. It was a pretty memorable day!" We made plans to see each other and when I got there, my mom was outside in a gazebo, under a beautiful flowering tree with one of her aides. She was beaming at me, not just happy to see me but happy to be right. I felt an optimism blooming in my chest as lovely as any of the flowers of the tree we were sitting under. My mom relayed the story of my birth accurately and with detail to her aide, and her aide glanced over at my crying face. "She's right," I said, hardly able to speak, "That's always the story I was told." My mom spoke directly to her aid and said, "Just because I had a stroke doesn't mean I'm not her mumsy!" and we all laughed.

But to me, that was the beginning of navigating our new relationship together. She had been right about my birthday, about wanting to be in touch with her sole source of support on a sentimental day. Her nurses, armed only with the assumptions they may hold about patients with traumatic brain injury, assumed that she was wrong about the day. Before her stroke and coma, Mom was a smart woman, hilarious travel companion, loving mother. After her stroke and coma, she is a strong woman. She is a hilarious travel companion. She is a loving mother. No matter how incapacitated she is by her medical problems, she is a human being who deserves compassion, respect, and to be trusted as the expert in her own life experience. And stroke or no stroke, no one will ever be able to stop her from remembering the best day of her life.

Laura DiCaronimo is a wife, optician, poet and community organizer out of North Central MA. She is the inaugural Dan Lewis award winner from Worcester County Poetry Association and curates The Openest Mic, a multi-location open mic series.