Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

Pierced to the Core

Illustrated by Pavlina Petrova Rahneva

I was taught how to put a needle through the skin of a red apple; according to the nurse, it has the same texture as our skin. Who would have known? The nurse showed me how to poke the apple, and then my mother’s arm. Most of the time, I succeeded in putting the needle into her veins. My mother and I were both surprised at my courage. I didn’t flinch while poking her. She congratulated me for my strength, and I congratulated myself as well, but I know now that we had spoken too fast.  Never would I have thought my mother’s illness would have led me to such despair and would’ve left me scarred, even in another country near the beach and far from home.

I have this image stuck in my head of those three blond girls from Alabama, dancing near the pool as they were singing in chorus: "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, wonder what it means to me R-E-S-P-E-C-T, take care TCB". These young girls had no clue what they were singing, but the scene was hilarious and as I look back, I laugh.

Every time I hear that song it reminds me of the summer of 2007. My mother and I had gone on a road trip with my aunt, her husband and my three monstrous little cousins. We packed 7 people into Navigator van, for a 17 hour ride. Destination: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the city of fire crackers. During the ride, we were forced to be with each other and enjoy each other's company. We were together as a family, enclosed in a restricted space where we found reasons to laugh and scream at every moment.  Soon enough, we got to our final destination, a sunny, beachside paradise. I’ve always loved the beach; everything about it captivates my senses. As soon as I got there it was calling to me. I ran from the car to feel the sand on my bare feet and smell and hear the sound of the ocean.

We had only been there a few days and already we had met funny characters, gone to pool and beach, and spent our nights at the 24/7 Wal-Mart.  I would wake up early in the morning to the smell of hazelnut coffee freshly made by my mom. I would jump into my bathing suit, dive head first into the pool with the rays of sun blinding my eyes, lie on my striped towel, and run to the lazy river, a donut shaped river whose current pushes you around like a fish in an aquarium. Mom and I would walk on the beach, singing at the top of our voice, free of worries. It was vacation!  But soon enough, it hit me. I was pulled back down to earth and was faced with reality. My efforts to forget and blind myself from all that was happening in Montreal collapsed.

Before heading to South Carolina, I had spent a lethargic summer, lying around all day like a couch potato.  The repertoire of movies I’d seen was expanding each day and a few tons of popcorn had perished in my stomach. My mother, a small plump secretary with dark glasses, nagged me to find work but my feeble attempts led to nothing. I had given my CV to the clothing, grocery, and shoe stores. I was either cursed or out of luck, maybe both. No one returned my calls. But the little woman standing in my living room would blame me, pointing her fingers in my face. We would always fight like animals, two female monkeys screaming and squeaking to get the same banana, no one to stop us. There was just my mother and I in our cozy apartment, the only witnesses; our antique furniture and my colorful pottery collection dispersed into every little corner, gathering dust. From her small height of 5 foot, she would let out her anger and frustrations. Slowly, she would verbally hammer me into the floor, my guilt ever increasing. That summer my mother was sick and undergoing a new treatment that required intravenous injections. Despite all this, we decided to travel.

One night, my cousin and I were coming back from the beach after a long day of roasting in the sun. We were walking in our damp clothes that were sticking to our skin with the uncomfortable sensation of the particles of sand tickling all over our bodies. The setting sun frightened me. It seemed as though there was too much of a contrast between the bright light of the day and the gloom of night. Silence was taking over, occasionally disrupted by the sound of crickets piercing through the heavy curtain of obscurity. I remember suddenly breaking into a  run at the sight of small Cockroaches crawling on the ground, making their way through the night. It was as if they were coming out as to intensify my terror. Our faces distorted in disgust, our bare toes hopped all over the ground animated by a life of their own.  I was frightened to step on the repulsive creatures.  They say history repeats itself; it felt to me as if the plagues were now part of my century. A shiver went down my spine. We ran inside the building to hide in the elevators. Had we escaped? Alas, the insects were there, crawling everywhere. When I entered the room, out of breath, my mother was lying on the couch. Her small eyes were blinded by the light we had turned on. Tired, she gazed at me. She needed an injection.

The only thing I remember was putting a needle in her arm, but it felt as though the needle was going through me, piercing my lungs, my heart and tearing up my soul. At that moment, I knew the battle was on. I was standing in the middle of the battle field and felt the explosion. I don’t know what happened but the needle wasn’t going through and the acidic fluid that was meant to flow in her veins stagnated in the IV bag we had clipped to the lampshade with a clothes pin. It was just waiting to be released into her blood vessels, a vain attempt to kill the virus. I was in control, but I didn’t want to be. 

Whenever I would fight with my mother, I would imagine her transforming into a liver, a big, sick and ugly liver. My frustration was poured out on that monstrous organ whom I was confronting. I would just scream my lungs out. But where was my mother?  I would rather say, not there, just particles floating in the air, blind, deaf, and relieved from human senses. I live alone with my mother and her sick liver. We are three, three minds battling to have their say, to be in control, to take over. Who will win? Only time will tell.

In that small hotel room I felt like the walls were closing in on me. A claustrophobic impulse compelled me to look around; my cousins were staring; six judging eyeballs sticking out of their sockets. But I was caught in my world. Usually vacation means escape. People want to breathe new air and experience "freedom". There is no such thing as escaping; my mind is stuck in my brain that is stuck in the skull of my head, on my shoulders.  And when you’re sick, like my mom, you can’t run from yourself. It’s inside of you and lives with you. It is you. Question marks were flooding my mind: why is this happening to me? I kept on playing the movie of that day to see what had gone wrong. I saw other families walking hand in hand, smiling, in their matching yellow hats, naked babies running from the waves, children building sandcastles and others destroying them, human beings simply trying to have fun.  I had participated in that scenery, dying of laughter on my striped towel.
But now, night had settled and all those emotions just disappeared to let fear and pain crawl back into me like the cockroaches in the darkness. At that moment, I just wanted to jump out of that building and run to the ocean, let her swallow me up in her dark blue arms and rock me calmly, like a rocking chair. I would feel safe in that vast and tumultuous, infinite, unpredictable ocean. How weird.

I think it’s at that point that I decided to be my mother’s mother.   A 16 year relationship was then destroyed; I had chosen to reverse the roles. I was working against nature and against all logic. It was like pushing against a wall. What a crazy idea. Who in his right mind would do such a thing? Well, me! A puzzled teenager who didn’t grasp the magnitude of the decisions she was taking.

My sight was blurry.  Was it the salty water of the ocean or tears coming out?  I managed to poke through the skin and catch the vicious, elusive vein, but as I managed to make her my prisoner, I unconsciously released the needle and she escaped me. I can’t explain what happened. All I know is that she had escaped and left me with trembling hands and pearls of sweat on my skin. It wasn’t an apple anymore. The warrior inside of me was tumbling to the ground, but I kept my composure. I looked up. My eyes met my mom’s. They were covered by a veil of darkness, like the night outside. Suddenly, the darkness and cockroaches outside the metal door felt more reassuring then what was going through my mother’s head. I had poked her enough times, and we both knew the game would soon be over. I had lost. Every time I poked through her skin it would burn her and I would watch her face distort with pain. I remember the distant voice of my cousins encouraging me, but to me they were just 3 more pairs of eyes, witnessing my failure. The heavy weight of my mother’s pain was on my shoulders. She seemed caught between her feelings and mine. Her seemingly calm voice said: you can do it, Julia. She obviously wanted to believe it. I couldn’t grasp her tone of voice. I didn’t want to do this stupid injection.

When we are young, there are many things of which we are unaware. Our mind chooses to make life-changing decisions in the midst of experiences that affect us and that we can’t escape. I can still picture the young girls singing “respect” in front of me. At that time I didn’t know what was happening to me, I did not grasp the depth of my situation and how it would influence my perception of life and most of all, the perception I have of my mother. Every day, I watch my mother as she struggles with her liver and immune from all sensations I blind myself from reality, even though it calls me with its high pitched voice at every moment of the day.  The ocean is not there to engulf me in her arms but my mother is. A tiny cold needle should never be a barrier to the warmth of love that connects us, and neither should a sick liver.