I Killed My Mother
February 7th, 2008
I killed my mother. It was 20 years ago this week.
She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This is a cancer that had a mortality rate of 99% but I remember that she told me she was going to survive. She always tended to be overweight. I remember seeing her going to Weight Watchers and she was always making a baked apple dish that tasted like an apple pie but wasn’t. I loved my mother since she was the one who supported me.
My father, on the other hand, was an inarticulate slug of a man and never told me he loved me. He only told me when I did wrong. He was a war hero and was on three different boats that were sunk by submarines. He worked as a war photographer with during World War II and with Ernie Pyle in Okinawa. He was courageous in his own way and a wonderful photographer but he laid heavy things on me. He told me not to make friends and not to trust anybody. I wish I listened to him. I would probably still have furniture.
Her life at the end was painful. I remember the day on Sample Blvd in Fort Lauderdale. My mom was back in the hospital the doctor asked me what I wanted to do. She was suffering and on life support. She was on heavy doses of morphine. Do you want to pull the plug? I knew I was in effect killing her but I said yes. I was wrapped up in my own self-pity, as usual, and I didn’t do much.
In retrospect I was a lousy son. Wanting to beat her cancer into submission was hopeless. She was 72 when she died. It is ironic that this year I am 72. But when I go, I want to die at a Chinese buffet with my cock being sucked while my tongue is inside a woman’s pussy when I am not stuffing my face with food.
