Free Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin by Adam Byrn Tritt Page B

outside
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    the hospital. And we walk in together. I think
    we met my brother on the way up to the
    room, or perhaps outside the room. Appar-
    ently my mother was not able to swallow any-
    more. I hadn’t seen her in, I think, about two
    months. I had called from time to time, but
    because she was unable to speak, she would
    try to speak on the phone but end up crying,
    so I alternately thought I should just call and
    not have her talk, or I should not call so as to not make her cry. So I probably didn’t call her
    as often as I might have. I certainly didn’t call her as often as I wanted to, because the crying was hard for both of us. She was such a
    dynamic person, it was harder to hear her not
    be able to speak than it was to see her not able to move.
    So we went in to see her. My father had
    called the night before my brother did, and
    he said she had not been eating, and I forget
    what else he said, but he was considering tak-
    ing her to the hospital. I suggested he take her right away—from his description she needed
    to be there—but he was wondering, vacillat-
    ing. I believe it was my brother who finally
    convinced him to get her to the hospital.
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    Went in. She really looked very “shell-ish,”
    nearly unable to move, unable to eat because
    she couldn’t swallow. I went in, gave her a
    hug, Sef gave her a hug, I did my best to not
    cry and I didn’t. My father, of course, takes
    me outside immediately to talk to me “in
    secret”—he was always telling secrets, always
    took me aside to whisper things—“Your
    mother’s not doing well, you’re mother’s not
    this or that,” as if my father still thought she was 40 and playing croquet, as if it were to
    be a surprise to him that she’s sick. When he’d
    call and say she’s not getting better, I’d say,
    “What did you expect, this is what happens
    with Parkinson’s.” I think he was trying to hold on to her, but I found it frustrating. He would
    whisper it because he didn’t want her to hear.
    So I sat with her, held her hand, Sef was on
    the other side, held her hand, talked to her.
    She made a few sounds here and there, she
    could move her eyes a little bit. Apparently a
    Swallow Test had been ordered—I’m not sure
    what the logistics of a Swallow Test are, I
    really don’t need to know—but they came
    and got her, wheeled her down, and before
    they wheeled her back up, I spoke with the
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    nurse and asked what the plan was, what the
    possibilities were. If the Swallow Test came
    out well, she would be able to eat. If the test
    did not come out well, she would be unable
    to eat, and the only way she would be able to
    receive nutrition would be through a tube
    going through her side and into her stomach.
    But the Parkinson’s medications can only be
    administered orally. So it means the Parkin-
    son’s would get worse and worse. So even that
    was not the best option. If she didn’t get the
    tube, she also wouldn’t get the medication.
    So IV feeding would be useless.
    My brother’s wife, Amy, worked at the hos-
    pital as a pharmacist, so anything needing
    clarification were made clear, She explained
    that the Swallow Test indicated she couldn’t
    swallow. That even ice chips would very eas-
    ily be aspirated. She was wheeled back into
    the room, put back in the bed, and my father
    pulls the nurse outside and around the cor-
    ner—and by then a friend arrived, this guy I
    didn’t know—and my father asks the nurse
    the results of her test.
    “Why don’t you ask in front of mommy?”
    I say.
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    The nurse cuts him off and says, “She has a
    right to know, and I will not discuss this with
    you unless she’s present.”
    I thanked her, and we walked back into the
    room. The nurse addressed my mother
    directly. She told her that the Swallow Test
    indicated she was unable to swallow, would
    aspirate anything she tried to eat, was at risk
    for choking, that the