2 2 THE NIGHT MY MOTHER SLEP (1/2)
The night, my mum slept and didn't wake up, my dad and my younger sister had travelled to the cold faraway city of London.
I was alone with her that night, and I remember all she told me in her weak voice as she lay on her large queen size bed.
My mum cried and screamed a lot, not just that night, but on a lot of the other days when she suffered her crisis. It lasted a couple of hours sometimes and other times a couple of days. Once, it lasted for months. Sometimes during the crisis, she would be rushed to the hospital and admitted, other times she stayed back at home and cried out in pain as my dad looked after her and my sister and I watched in concern.
That night my mum didn't speak to me about the concept of sleeping and not waking up anymore.The same thing she had called dying or death. I didn't ask any more questions either because I didn't know she would sleep and not wake up until she slept and didn't wake up. Yet when I think back about that night, I realise that there was a way she looked down at me as she stroked my dark curly hair that showed that she actually knew that she would sleep and not wake up. It was an I–will–miss–you–so–much look. That kind of look you give someone you love who is leaving for a long time and you don't know when you will see them again; or the kind of look that you give the last piece of a bar of delicious chocolate, which you have been eating, because you know that once you eat it, there will be no more of the chocolate left for you to eat again.
There was a deep sadness in my mum's eyes when she stared at me with that look. It was a long look and tears were rolling down her cheeks before she said to me in her weak voice, ”Promise me you will look after your sister and your father.”
I had responded because I thought if I said I would do as she requested; my mum would get better and go back to her normal happy, always smiling and singing self.
”I will, Mum.”
”Kompa will take care of you,” she continued.
Kompa's head shot up, and he stared at us from the foot of the bed.
”I will take care of him,” I countered in my big brother voice.
She laughed and then winced audibly before she coughed and coughed and coughed while covering her mouth with her right hand and stroking my hair with her left.
Kompa looked at her in concern.
When she stopped coughing, she said, ”You both will take care of each other.”
Kompa barked once. It was his way of saying yes to people like my mum who couldn't hear him speak, but to me, he said, ”It is high time you agreed that it is me who takes care of you and not you of me. But since mum is ill, let's agree with what she says so she can get well, we will take care of each other.”
”You wish,” I said to Kompa. Then I turned to my mum and continued, ”Won't you take care of all of us like you always have?”
She looked down at me as she stroked my hair and responded.
”I will.”
”Thank you.”
I was eight years old small; my sister was five years old tiny; my mum was thirty years old frail, my dad was thirty-three years old strong and the Border Collie, Kompa, who my mother had given me for my sixth birthday, was a year and three months old feisty.
The bed in which my mother and I lay had big comfy pillows in white pillowcases that matched the white bed sheet and duvet. She cradled me in her thin arms and I felt her shiver. When I looked up at her, her tired eyes, which had dark circles around them, appeared to be sinking into her head. Her eyes were open very wide, and I stared at them for a while until they finally closed.
Unlike other times when she would simply smile when I asked her to tell me why she fell ill so often, my mum had spoken more about the nature of her illness to me that night.
It was an illness that she had been born with and from which she was always falling sick.
Her illness was called sickle cell anaemia.
It happens to people who have something wrong with the red blood cells in their body.
She had said, with a tinge of sadness, as though thinking about her illness was a heavy burden, ”A cell is the smallest part of our bodies.”
”How small?” I asked.
”So small that it can only be seen under a microscope.”
”What does it look like?”
”It is like a workshop.”
”A workshop?”
”Yes, complete with benches and machines. But all of that is not really benches and machines like you have seen, but things that look like those even though they are all parts of the cell.”
”Hmmm,” It was the only sound I made as I tried to understand what she meant.
She continued, ”Can you imagine it?”
”No.”
She laughed. It was short, and it winded her. She stopped for a while to gather her breath, and then she continued.
”Think of it as the kitchen in this house. And we are getting ready for a party, so I have all my friends come over to help me cook. All of us doing one thing or the other to prepare the meal. Some cutting vegetables, some washing rice, some preparing meat, others kneading the dough, everyone working to get food ready for the party.That is how the inside of a cell is. You see it now?”
”Yes.” I could see it clearly.
”Great. All that happens in a cell is very specialised. So, it does one thing and one thing only.”
”All cells in our body do only one thing?”
”No, not all cells. Each cell does one thing.All the cells that do the same thing exist together in groups. That is why there are different groups of cells that do different kinds of things. And because they all do different things; they all work collectively like in teams and are able to make our bodies function.”
”Oh, I get it now,” I was piqued.
I imagined the cells like a football team: a goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and strikers. I could even see substitutes on the bench and trainers and a coach.
My mum continued speaking, ”Each group of cells does its job so that other groups of cells can do their jobs. When one group has a problem doing its job, other groups begin to fail in doing their jobs too. The more they fail, the more our bodies begin to fall sick, and if we cannot stop the cells from failing to do their jobs, our bodies will fall sick so often that one day, we will close our eyes in the forever sleep.”
”Forever sleep?” I asked.
”Yes, like death.”
”We die if our cells stop doing their jobs?”
”Yes, we do. Especially our white blood cells.”
”White like white in colour?”
”Yes. They are white like a watery milky colour.”
”What do they do?”
”They fight any disease in our body. They protect us.”
”Like soldiers?”
”Perfect description.”
”Wow!” I said as I imagined soldiers in white running all around my body fighting colds, and fevers, and running nose, and headaches.
Then I looked up at my mum and asked, ”Do they have guns?”
”Not the kind of guns you see on TV or your toy guns, but there are special weapons they have which they fight with, and once they have it, they are called a different name.”
”Different from white blood cells?”
”Yes, just in name only, but they are still white blood cells.”
”What is the name?”
”It is too advanced for you, love, when you grow older you will learn all about it in school.”
”I want to know now, Mum. What are they called?”
She shook her head in an exhausted way.
”Please, Mum,” I said with my puppy face.
She laughed.
”Okay, they are called Lymphocytes.”
”Lymphocytes,” I repeated in wonder.
”Yes.”
”Can you spell it?”
”L – Y – M – P – H – O – C – Y – T – E – S.” She spelt it, and I repeated it along with her. It was one of the most difficult words I had heard, although it was not as difficult as the words: encyclopaedia, penicillin, regurgitate, photosynthesis, parliamentary, democratic or metamorphosis. But unlike the others, it created pictures for me. Fun pictures that moved as though across a television screen.
”Lymphocytes are so cool. Are there like black blood cells too?”
She laughed even louder. Then she coughed a bit and fell silent, trying to catch her breath. Kompa wagged his tail twice, made a whining sound and fell silent too. Then my mum began to speak again.
”There are no black blood cells, just red blood cells.”
”Red blood cells?”
”Yes, they are called red because they are actually red in colour.”
”Why are they red?”
”They are red because they have something that helps them carry oxygen.”
”What is it called?”
”Too many questions. You don't need to know all of these details now.”
”But I want to, please. Remember you said I need to know at least one new word per day.”
”Yes, but not these words. These are scientific words.”