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Radio Diaries: Too Late

After being gravely ill for several months, my mother was in the hospital in what the doctor called a “terminal coma.”  Her once-lovely face was sunken and gray, her hands motionless.  I sat by her bed awhile but because she was completely unresponsive, I stopped visiting.

Several days later, she died alone.  I felt sorry that no one had been with her but after all, I thought, she was in a coma.  She wouldn’t have known I was there.  And I was a young mother at home with a toddler, trying to juggle responsibilities.

Many years later, I learned that people in a coma are aware of others, can hear their voices.  Why had no one at the hospital told me this?  Perhaps it was unknown at the time.  Perhaps I should have been wise enough, kind enough to sit with my mother anyway.

We were not close but both of us had tried to reach out.  I never anticipated she would die at sixty-one—long before we were able to resolve our differences.  Now, my loss was multiplied by the knowledge that I had abandoned her at the end.

Could she forgive me? I wondered.  Probably she already had.