It was an average morning on Maui. If average meant the most perfect climate and landscape anyone could ever want to live within.
Mona was asleep in her bed.
An ʻIʻiwi bird was singing right outside her window and its song was mixing with the sounds of the ocean and the soft enveloping breeze.
This perfect and tranquil scene had greeted Mona everyday since she moved here. It was truly paradise.
Ten years ago Mona had moved here with her only daughter, Tina.
They happily left so many burdens behind them. Namely her Ex-husband and an immediate and extended family that always seemed to be taking from her.
When she lived back on the mainland, very few telephone calls, emails or texts came in from family with offers to help her or with inquiries as to how she or her daughter were doing.
Her only sibling, her sister Lisa, and her mother, were the worst offenders.
As Mona lay in bed, barely awake at 6am, the perfect shroud of tranquility made up of the bird song, the sound of the ocean, and the breeze, was violently stripped from her.
There was a loud knock on the front door.
“Tina, could you see who the hell is at our front door at 6am?”
Little Tina’s footfalls on the bamboo floors echoed throughout the house and then were silenced when she stood looking outside the window next to the front door.
Tina’s 11 year old mind was confused and frightened. She saw an ambulance pulling away and what looked like an old woman on a hospital gurney at the end of the driveway.
Little Tina’s frantic running footfalls on the bamboo floors were now echoing throughout the house as she raced into her mother’s bedroom.
She was almost hyperventilating. She tried to speak but it came out in a staccato fashion the way small children try to speak through crying.
“Mooommm… (deep breath)
theeereee. (deep breath)
issss (deep breath)
aann (deep breath)
ooldd (deep breath)
laaddyy (deep breath)
on a (deep breath)
hoospittaal (deep breath)
beddddd (deep breath)
attt (deep breath)
theee (deep breath)
eennd (deep breath)
off (deep breath)
thee (deep breath)
driiiiivvveway…. (deep breath)
It only took a split second for Mona’s mind to register what was happening.
Her eyes grew wide as if she was feeling the greatest terror.
She sprung from her bed screaming. “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”.
She ran blindly, almost through Tina, knocking her against the bedroom wall.
Her screams of “NO!” along with her frantic running footfalls on the bamboo floors could be heard echoing throughout the house.
The next thing that was heard was the front door being swung open and slamming into the wall.
She ran down the driveway and approached her 90 year old mother laying silent and immobile, eyes closed, on a hospital gurney.
She had I-Vs in both arms, and several monitors, running on batteries, attached to the side of the gurney. The smells of disease, decay and human waste coming from the bed offended the tranquil surroundings.
There was a piece of paper taped to the end of the blanket covering her mother, with a simple message.
Mona,
YOUR TURN,
Lisa
