Memory is a fickle thing.

I can’t recall now if I ever wrote about my mother’s accident on here.

Over the years, I’ve chosen not to dwell on the past, and instead conveniently shelve painful memories into lockable trunks that get tucked in the basement storage room.

Today though, I feel like I ought to write about it, because, well, I don’t know why. It’s just been on my mind I suppose.
It wasn’t like my father’s death a little over a year ago, where it was relatively swift, startling, and final. It’s lingered on, refusing to be forgotten, because the subject of the accident is still alive, though perhaps only in very literal terms.

You know when something really big happens, you remember exactly where you were, what you were doing, what the weather was like? You remember the goosebumps and chills, how it feels a bit like the universe has shifted yet looks eerily the same? Like when the twin towers were hit on 9/11. I remember it clear as day.

It was the same on the day of my mother’s accident.
It was a sunny Thursday, and I was finishing up a cushy clinic rotation on what would be the last week of my five year residency. The next day, I’d be leaving to meet up with my husband in cottage country for the last three weeks of June, where I’d banked enough vacation time to ensure I’d have a nice long break before starting my fellowship training. It was mid-afternoon, and I was about to dictate a few followup notes. I was working with a fellow senior resident in another specialty who was aloof, but intelligent and kind. I think her name was Sarah. It was hot, as we were at on older hospital site away from the main university campus where the air conditioning sputtered some days. I was wearing a skirt, something I never do at work anymore.

I had a basic, small, cell phone, sitting on the counter. I was never one to answer the phone, but that day, I just happened to. It turned out to be my dad.

He had this way of whisper-saying my name when he was trying to be discreet, and that day, that’s how he responded after I said “Hello”.
“It’s Daddy.” in the same whispery voice. He paused. Why did he call himself that?
Hi Dad. Is everything okay? He never calls me. Never called me. It was always my mom who called to chat.
“Your mom. She’s been in an accident. She’s been airlifted to St Mike’s. I think you need to come back.” Each sentence is punctuated by a numb, vacant pause.
My mind races. Air lifts are bad. St Mike’s is a trauma centre. My parents lived in the suburbs, far from the hub that St Mike’s services in the city centre. It must be bad if they sent a helicopter to take her to a trauma centre out of her usual regional health authority. My stomach tightens.
“Can you come back?”
What happened?
“Car accident. I can tell you when you get here.”

I am flustered. I have notes to dictate. An afternoon of patients left to see. I am frozen with indecision. I’m meeting with my fellowship advisor after work. I don’t know what to do.
The other resident has heard parts of my conversation.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I remember trying to piece together a sentence. She waves me away. “Give me your notes. I’ll dictate them. Go. I’ll tell Dr Z why you’ve had to go.”
My notes are chicken scratch. There is probably a series of follow up notes that make no sense whatsoever from that clinic.

I drive to my little townhouse. This part I don’t remember. I do remember my already packed suitcase sitting open. I throw in toiletries, zip it shut.
I call my husband, who is working on a garbage barge hauling rich people’s garbage from their private islands to the dump. I can hear the wind and boat motor in the background as I update him. We live four hours apart.
I call my best friend at the time to see if she can watch my then tiny puppy while I’m gone. I change hurriedly out of my work clothes while said puppy cries and whines in confusion at the excitement. I leave him in his crate and he cries some more.
“You can’t drive like this. You’ll get in an accident. I’ll drive you, then I’ll come back and get the pup.”
She is a neurocritical care nurse. She is used to waking up semi-comatose patients and them having no choice but to listen to her and obey.
I protest, because I will be fine, I say, it’s only a two hour drive.
“NO. Stay put. I’m coming to get you.”

On the way to the city, we stop for gas. I vaguely recall talking to an ICU resident on the phone about my mother’s injuries, then patting myself on the back for being so calm and collected.
My mother-in-law later advised that he had reported to her that I seemed disjointed and harried, but I like to think he just sucked.

My friend, who hates the city, weaves through the dense traffic of Toronto’s downtown core, where she dumps me and my suitcase on the steps of the hospital, then turns around to drive back another 2.5 hours now in traffic to collect my dog.

My aunt and uncle are already there, and meet me so I can put my suitcase in their vehicle.

I am led to a “family conference” room outside the ICU where I see my father, and he looks small and broken. My brother-in-law is there, surprisingly, and my uncle and aunt. My brother-in-law gets up to hug me, and he is quiet. I remember his expression so clearly, and oddly, I can’t remember now who else was there. This is where the clarity stops.

The rest of that day I don’t remember. I don’t remember the feeling of seeing my mother, swollen, bruised and stitched, head shaven, with a collection of wires and tubing attached to her. I imagine now it would have taken my breath away, not like sunsets do, but like sucker punches to the gut. I don’t remember much about the two weeks she was in that coma.

I do remember seeing an old friend one day, a neurosurgeon who pulled strings to expedite meetings, imaging, tests. I remember calling him one night at midnight, and asking him to review the evidence with me for a treatment they were doing. I remember another friend, a radiologist, pulling up every single one of my mother’s many scans, and reviewing them with me. His mother and mine were old friends. I remember pulling out a notepad and drawing brains to explain to my dad what what was happening. I remember calling some of the most seasoned Neuro-Intensivists I knew to get their opinions on prognosis.
In the two months that followed, I have vague recollections of sleeping on the futon in my parents’ family room, going to the gym and running on machines that go nowhere until I couldn’t breathe anymore, then driving to the subway station with my dad and my brother, and eating lunch at the Chinese BBQ place across the street from the hospital.
I remember my dad calling a prayer hour every evening. I remember him yelling at me one day when I sighed, “Let’s get this over with” after he called one.
I remember my dad, hunched over the kitchen sink, sobbing. I had never seen him cry before.

It’s been a long time. My mother lived, but she is not the same.
The present day version of my mother is a stranger to me, and I don’t really know what to do with this. I have stopped bursting into tears at the memory of the Mom I lost, of the things that could have been, now forever only a wish.

My brother sends me silly pictures of my mom in pink metallic pleather jeans, which she made him buy because she liked them. She is standing by a flowering tree. Or in front of the living room wall. When I call her, my phone tells me our conversations last about a minute, often less. She cannot think of things to say to me, or remember how to initiate conversation anymore. We have already talked about the things she does remember a hundred times, and I don’t want to talk about them anymore. Such a far cry from the hours we would gab when she was well. That too, is a vague memory now. I don’t remember what we used to talk about, laugh about.

It might be better this way though, because lockable trunks exist for safe-guarding the things you hold dear, but don’t need to access too often; don’t want to access too often.

I’m going to put it away again. I think I’ve had enough.