After losing eight people she loved deeply in a decade, the author of Three Women was feeling hopeless. But there came a surprising respite from her hypochondria
I have no hope. When I say it out loud it makes other people very uncomfortable. My father was in a car accident. I slept in the hospital chapel. I prayed to the god of loop-pile carpet to let my father live. Even when the doctors told us they might have to amputate all his limbs, I prayed to God to give me his torso. Every night was a chance. Every new morning was a toothpick of glass to the eye. There is something called “bagging”, which means that someone dependent on machines to survive still needs occasional, sudden resuscitation – having air forced into the lungs. From an actual bag. Like a baker’s pastry tube. I hadn’t heard the term bagging before and I hope I never do again.
My mother died of lung cancer, died like a nightmare. Last breaths like a deer on the road, choking on its own blood. I saw a deer die like that one night. It had just been hit by a car and I prayed that it would live, that all of a sudden it would stop dying. In those final moments of my mother’s life, I took her hand and cradled it over my head as her body turned tombstone-grey. I was trying to force one more motherly touch. My sadness was profound and I watched my hope die with her. With the deer I was just normal sad. Which is what I imagine people with hope feel.
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