Pg 4

   The next day we were driving to the "doctor's house" which is what I told my 3 year old son, to see my mother, I feel the tears coming and I try to choke them back with little effort. Walking into the hospital through the long hallway to the elevator, it seemed the hallway got longer with every step I took. Finally we reach the elevator and we stand there and wait. When the door finally opens, we walk inside not a word spoken since we left the car. We get out of the elevator and go to the nurses station. We asked if it was okay to go see her. "She is in room 203" one said.
   As we leave the station and walk to her room I feel the tears coming on again. She had a private room. I walked up to her bed and there she was. She started crying, she looked at me and said "You be a good girl." I could no longer hold back the tears. I looked at her through my watering eyes and I said "Don't you say your goodbyes, don't do that." I took her hand and rubber her index finger. My sister was behind my father who was sitting in a chair beside her. We tried to talk about happy times but I knew that we were all thinking about the outcome of this terrible situation.
   Just like in the emergency room I have never felt so helpless. I could not do anything but sit there and watch my mother drift away from me.
   After a week she started getting day passes and my father would take her for nice drives and then home where she loved to be. Because at her home, there was a creek with a bridge my father had made out of a fallen tree. It was so beautiful and peaceful. My mother loved to sit beside the creek on the bench and just listen to the water running over the rocks. That was her "happy place" a place where she could forget what was going on in her life and just relax.
   After awhile because of her health was slipping away from her she had to go back to the hospital and go on IV for a couple of days before getting her pass again. Then on one Friday she got a three day pass and went home. My sister slept with her in the bed and my father on the couch. My sister was up every hour taking her to the bathroom. In the morning she started hallucinating at that point my sister told my father that mom could not longer stay home, so they went back to the hospital.