I'm Glad My Mom Died(52)

For the first week of her hospitalization, the boys and I stayed at a hotel nearby while we waited for her to die. But then she didn’t. So after a week, we checked out of the hotel. Life resumed back to normal, or as normal as it could be. Dustin stopped taking sick days and went back to work. Marcus flew home to Jersey. Grandpa and Dad alternated work shifts so someone could be with Mom most nights, while Scott stayed with her during the days. I visited each day after I got off work on my spin-off, which had started taping. I’d go from slinging a buttersock and shouting my cheesy lines on the brightly colored, overlit Sam & Cat soundstage to sitting in a hospital bedside chair with outdated upholstery, surrounded by the smell of sanitization and the feel of death.

Today is no different. I just finished shooting a scene where I confront some mean school bullies and slap somebody with a ham sandwich. And now I’m here. Watching a nurse change my mother’s shit bag while she side-eyes me. I know what’s coming, and it is pure hell.

“Are you…?” the nurse asks. If this hadn’t already happened twenty-five times in this hospital, I’d be shocked someone had the audacity to ask me if I’m Sam Puckett while I’m sitting across from my dying mother.

I don’t respond. I narrow my eyes and hope the nurse recognizes how inappropriate it is that she’s asking this right now. She doesn’t.

“You look like Samantha Puckett. Sam. Are you her?”

I sit in this feeling of utter hopelessness toward the state of humanity while the nurse disposes of my mother’s feces.

“No,” I say. Rudely.

“You look just like her. Spitting image. Do you mind if I take a picture so I can show my niece? She’s not gonna believe how much you look like her.”

I lean back in the chair. It squeaks. “No. I’m not taking a picture.”

I look at Mom. It’s wild how much cancer has changed her shape. She used to have curves, all four foot eleven of her. She had thighs, a bit of an ass, and boobs too (well, boob, if you’re only counting real ones, the other one was the implant post-mastectomy). She had a small waist and narrow shoulders. She had shapeliness. Now her stomach is distended, her boobs have shriveled, her legs are twigs. Her arms look longer in an almost monkey-like way—they just dangle at her sides. She looks less human to me.

“Iluyooo!” Mom lobs into the abyss. This is one of the only phrases she has left in her. She has so many brain tumors that are so big in size that she’s all but brain-dead. And yet she still remembers how to sort-of say “I love you.” It makes my heart physically hurt.

“Iluyoo!” she says again, her head bobbing around and no connection behind her eyes. I bite my lip ’til it bleeds.

I try looking at Mom while I’m here at the hospital with her—to savor her, to remember her. But at the same time, I don’t want to remember her like this. So every time I look at her, within moments, I look away again. Sometimes I’ll force myself to grab her hands and tell her I love her and that I’m here for her, but most of the time I’m not strong enough to do that. So instead, I sit in the chair in the corner, and I look at her occasionally, but otherwise I look out the window and try not to break down.

My phone pings with a text from Colton. He’s asking if I want to get away for a few days, take a road trip to San Francisco. He knows I’m struggling and thinks this will help take my mind off things. I check in with Grandpa that Mom’s at a “stable” place for at least the next few days, and Grandpa says she is.

I take one quick look at Mom while she spews some gibberish. I can’t get out of this hospital fast enough. I get up, kiss her on the forehead, and leave.





53.


I’M SITTING SHOTGUN IN COLTON’S Dodge Charger. He’s driving. We’re reminiscing about the first time we met, on a movie shoot in Utah nearly ten years ago. We’re fifteen miles from San Francisco when he suggests we pick up a little alcohol to drink back at the hotel. I’ve never had alcohol before, more so because I was scared of it after seeing Joe’s relationship with it than because I’m holding on to any Mormon values or anything.

But if there’s anyone I’d try drinking with, it’s Colton. He’s warm and energetic and has a way of making everyone around him feel accepted. Plus he’s gay, so I don’t have to worry about any sexual tension.

We crack open the bottle the second we get to our hotel room and pour a shot’s worth each into the two plastic courtesy cups from the bathroom. We open a packet of Sour Patch Kids so we can suck on them as soon as we take our shots.

“You ready?” Colton asks excitedly. I nod. He counts us in. “One, two, three.”

We plug our noses, swallow our drinks, and suck on the Sour Patch Kids.

“I don’t feel anything,” I say, confused.

Colton agrees, so we take another shot.

“Okay, still not much, but now I feel, like, a slight dizziness.”

Colton agrees, so we take another shot.

“Ooh, I think I’m starting to feel it.”

Colton agrees, so we take one more, just in case.

Before we can determine how the fourth shot feels, we’ve jumped on the beds, played hide-and-seek in the hotel hallway, and snuck into the pool even though it’s closed. We’ve planned a short film we’re gonna make together where we’re handcuffed to each other for a week. We’ve tried to find handcuffs. Luckily, we haven’t.