March 2002
Part Three

As our mother dies, my other sister is somewhere over the United States flying nonstop to Los Angeles from London. Her plane is scheduled to land around five o'clock. She is going to rent a car and drive down to San Diego. We decide to drive to LA and try to reach her before she starts the drive down to us. We do not thinks she should be alone when she learns Mom is gone. It is Friday afternoon and the San Diego Freeway is packed with cars headed in the same direction as we are. There is an accident somewhere up ahead and right now the expressway is like a parking lot after a music concert, jammed with cars trying to leave at the same time. We are not going to make to the airport before our sister's aircraft lands. Our only hope is that she calls us before she picks up her rental car.

We are about half way to LA when our youngest sister's cell phone rings. It is our other sister, she has already picked up her car and is on her way to San Diego. My sister who is in the car with me is trying not to tell our other sister that Mom has died but, finally, there is no way around it. She tells her Mom died at eleven o'clock this morning. She listens for a bit and then says, "No, I promised we would try to keep Mom alive until you got here. That wasn't possible." Pause. "I know." Pause. "I know." After talking to her for a couple of more minutes my youngest sister hands the phone to me.

Our sister is very angry that she was not there when our mother died. "She promised. She promised you would keep Mom alive until I got there. She promised," my sister tells me, sounding like a heart broken eight year old child. I tell her no, she promised we would try to keep Mom alive but that wasn't possible. We had to let her go. I ask her if she wants us to meet her somewhere and she says she doesn't know and wants to hang up and call back in a few minutes. I say fine and hang up.

My brother has exited the freeway and pulled into a gas station while these conversations are going on so we wait there for our sister's call. After 20 minutes she calls back and tells me she will continue on to San Diego by herself. My youngest sister and I have been staying at our brother's apartment but it is very crowded with all of us staying there so I've decided to get a motel room for the night. I ask my sister if she would like to join me. I know she is very angry at our sister right now and may need a little time to calm down. She says yes and I tell her as soon as I find a motel I like we will call her back.

Driving back to San Diego, finding a motel, checking in, and taking a shower seems to take no time at all. My sister is knocking on the door when I step out of the bathroom. When I open the door and see her there I feel confused. How can she be her already? I just got here myself. I've noticed that since I got back from Spain my sense of time is not consistent, it seems to shrink and stretch like a rubber band. Is this part of the Camino fog I have been in since I got back?

After my sister settles in I tell her about our mother's death from the moment I first stepped into her ICU room. She is sitting very close and is watching my face intently. It is like she is trying to absorb every word I am saying deep inside her. I am uncomfortable. I feel guilty because I was there when our mother died and she was not. I feel guilty because I decided to do what my mother wanted and not try to keep her body alive until my sister got there. I love my sister and I love my mother. What has happened isn't fair.

When I was ten years old, during one of my parent's fights, my mother decided to leave my father. As she was throwing clothes into a suitcase she asked me who I wanted to stay with, her or my father. I was in agony. How? How could I pick one over the other? If I chose going with her, then I didn't love my father. If I chose to stay with my father, then I didn't love my mother. I'm feeling the same way now, like I was asked to choose who I loved the most, my mother or my sister. I know this is not true. I know that I had to respect my mother's wishes, but at the same time I feel as if I betrayed my sister. I don't tell her that I feel this way because I am afraid she thinks the same thing. I can't face that right now.

As I tell my sister about our mother's death I think I am being very calm and collected but at one point she reaches out and puts her hand on my left leg and asks, "What is this?" Until she touched me I had not realized my leg had been vibrating like a flag pole rope in a high wind. "I don't know," I answer, and as I say the words my leg stops twitching. Finally all I have left to tell is that Mom's body is in the hospital morgue and will be moved to the mortuary on Monday. Her body will be cremated some time next week. Then, both of us emotionally and physically exhausted, we crawl into our beds and fall asleep.