Healthcare is not a right, it is a service provided by doctors and nurses who went to school to learn how to care for a sick human being. And they expect to be compensated for their services. Surely you would not expect your mechanic who learned how to fix your car, repair it for free, because it is your right to have a running vehicle. Continue reading
My daughter and I go to the nursing home so often that the head nurse rolls her eyes when she sees us, we are there almost every day. My husband jokes that we must wear a visitor’s badge every time otherwise they might not let us go, thinking that we were patients. Continue reading
Mom in Catoctin Mountain
It’s Mother’s Day 2015. We drove by Catoctin Mountain, Maryland. It’s a verdant late spring with a balmy bathed-in-the sunshine day. It is a bittersweet Mother’s Day for me. Mom and I used to come to Fredrick in the fall to pick apples and other fruits from the many orchards in the area. Local small farms would sell their preserves, honey, and home-made pies. The trees were so laden with fragrant apples that the branches would almost touch the ground in some parts. The bees were kissing the sweet nectar of rotting apples on the ground and the apple cider dripping from the barrel’s spout outside. If you were there, samples of cider were free for the taking. Continue reading
I come on at the second minute mark. Alan and I are discussing how the elderly are treated by Obamacare and the situation with Ebola.
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My beloved Mom
The first golden day of autumn has become the cold, barren winter of my Mom’s life.
A week ago I was planning to take Mom on a flight to Romania to see her siblings one last time. As I attempted to renew her passport, I remember wondering if the bureaucratic wheels will turn fast enough in sixty days. Would she still be able to travel then? How prophetic those words have become! Now she is locked inside a body that can no longer move. One moment she was vibrant and mobile, and the next moment her life was turned upside down. Continue reading
My mom’s hands are now trembling. She has difficulty holding a cup without spilling it. Her hands fail her more times than I can count. They are still beautiful and soft, the hands who caressed my forehead when I had a fever, the hands who held my little hands and the hands of my children when we learned to walk and to cross the street safely. Mom’s strong, loving hands rocked the cradle, guided the stroller, pushed the swing, or held us while we fell asleep enchanted by her made-up fairy tales.
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