A Yellow Gown and Dollop of Sanitizer

Pickle Berry
Jul 10, 2017 · 2 min read

Pushhh. Open. Squish, glop, and wipe.

I wash my hands with sanitizer and pull on a lightly woven yellow gown. Next, a pair of small, nitrile gloves.

Walking in to my mother’s room, I peek in first from behind the curtain to say hi. I smile big and wave theatrically, hoping for even the slightest response. She looks at me long and hard, then breaks into a smile. Thank God, I think. Maybe today will be a good day.

I pull up the “sleepy” chair beside my mom’s hospital bed and take a seat. We call it the “sleepy” chair because anyone who sits in it gets overcome with drowsiness, and eventually, dozes off. We aren’t quite sure why — the seat-to-back angle is like 90 degrees and the chair is stiff and tall. In the corner of the room there is another chair that actually opens up into a bed, yet it still isn’t as sleep-inducing as this tall chair. Normally I avoid the “sleepy” chair, but today I am fasting and am really ready for a nap.

I watch Mom’s face as she stares at me, then at the ceiling, then back at me, and wonder to myself how long this will go on for. How many months have we been in this state? How many more months to come? How long before I can start a full-time job again? I have to do something. I wish people knew my story. My friends don’t know, my extended family doesn’t know, and even I don’t know the entire story. Much of it was kept secret by my parents. I just wish I could remember this story forever and all the challenges within it. So here, I am, writing it down.

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