# A First Brush With Loss 

<p>

I walked into the ICU with my mother-in-law. At 22 years old I had never gotten any closer to death than the death of a dearly beloved pet. That itself was enough to stick on my heart forever. Entering the ICU and seeing my mother unconscious with tubes running out of her nose looking like death on the table put me in a place of surreal shock. 

Was this really my mother laying on that table? The urgent call came that I was needed in the ER because my mother had overdosed on her pills. Mom struggled for years after the separation from my dad and their 20-year marriage. She had recently remarried a younger man. Rick was 13 years her junior. She said she woke up one morning and was in shock to discover that she was laying next to this younger man and did not know how she got there. Mom was in her early 40s. I was about 21. 

The radio played pop music and we looked down at her still form. At the time, pill overdose suicide attempts had their stomachs pumped. Dark bits flowed through the clear plastic tubes exiting her nose.  Doctors couldn't promise an outcome.

I later found out that she ate chicken livers and onions before taking the toxic pills. I took her hand and told her I loved her. Her face was puffed and eyes closed. Her hand didn't squeeze mine. She was, however, still breathing.

This ends my five minutes.

<p>

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