After ten years of being her sole caregiver, my dying mother looked right through me and told the doctor to let my brother, who had just flown in, handle everything.
He arrived from his carefree life abroad with a perfect tan and a thousand-watt smile, ready for his starring role as the devoted son.
He posted poignant selfies of him holding her hand for likes while I was the one up at 3 AM with the morphine. He charmed the nurses and spent her last dollars on useless, expensive gifts to show how much he cared.
Everyone called him a saint. They saw his five-star performance of grief and never noticed the decade of grim, thankless work I did every single day.
He wanted the lead role in her final act, but he never understood that the real power wasn’t in holding her hand for the cameras, but in being the one who held all the receipts.
The Long Goodbye: The Tuesday Meds
The tiny white pill looks identical to the six others. I know this one is the beta-blocker because it’s Tuesday, 8:00 AM, and it sits in the slot marked with a black ‘T’. My fingers move automatically, pressing it out of its plastic bubble and into the small paper cup with the others. Ten years. For ten years, I have been the keeper of the pills, the master of the schedule, the translator for the endless parade of doctors and specialists.
My phone buzzes on the counter, vibrating against a stack of mail I need to sort. It’s Mark. I let it go to voicemail. He’ll ask how I’m doing, and I don’t have an answer that isn’t a lie. A second buzz. A text from my daughter, Lily. ‘Thinking of you, Mom. Love you.’ I stare at the words, a small, warm pinprick in the vast, gray numbness.
The house smells of rubbing alcohol, stale lavender, and the faint, metallic tang of sickness that clings to the furniture. From the back bedroom, the oxygen concentrator emits its rhythmic, percussive hiss—shush-thump, shush-thump—the soundtrack to our lives now. It’s the sound of my mother’s lungs failing, a slow, metered retreat from the world.
I’m a project manager. My job is to take a chaotic blueprint of steel, concrete, and a hundred competing contractors and wrestle it into a cohesive, functional building on time and under budget. I am good at it. I am good at breaking down overwhelming tasks into manageable steps. This, right here, has been my longest, most difficult project. The budget is my mother’s meager savings account, which I guard like a dragon. The deliverable is… what? A good death? A peaceful end? The blueprint for that doesn’t exist.
I pick up the cup of pills and a glass of water, the condensation already slick on my fingers. Time for the morning dose. Time to start the day.
The Convertible in the Driveway
A flash of candy-apple red slices through the drab Ohio morning. It’s so out of place in the quiet, beige neighborhood that I actually stop and stare out the kitchen window. A Ford Mustang convertible, roof down despite the damp chill, crunches to a halt in our driveway. The driver’s door opens, and out steps Ethan.
Of course.
He looks like he’s stepped off a plane from a much better life. He’s tan, his teeth are impossibly white against his sun-kissed skin, and his dark hair is artfully messy. He’s wearing a linen shirt and expensive-looking jeans, and he pulls a small, trendy duffel bag from the passenger seat. My own uniform consists of seven-year-old yoga pants and a faded t-shirt with a barely-visible logo from a 5k I ran before all this began.
I open the front door before he can knock. He drops the bag and envelops me in a hug that smells of sandalwood and airplane air. It’s a performative hug, strong and brief. “Sarah. God. You look exhausted.”
It’s not a question. It’s a diagnosis.
“I’m here now,” he says, pulling back and holding my shoulders, his gaze intense. “I got the first flight I could. You don’t have to do this alone anymore. I’m here to take over.”
The words are perfect. They are exactly what a loving, responsible son would say. But his eyes are already scanning past me, assessing the state of the house, the scuff marks on the walls, the pile of medical supply boxes by the door. He’s a tourist here. A visitor on a grief safari.
“I just had to come,” he says, his voice dropping to a confidential, earnest whisper. “Mom needs her boy. I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t here at the end.”
The Golden Boy
We walk toward the back bedroom, my worn sneakers silent on the hardwood, his fashionable boots making a soft, authoritative clumping sound. The shush-thump of the oxygen machine gets louder. I push the door open gently.
Mom is a frail shape under a thin floral quilt, her face turned toward the wall. For the past week, she’s been mostly asleep, lost in a fog of pain and medication. Her moments of lucidity are brief, confused flashes. I’ve been spoon-feeding her broth, reminding her of my name, holding a cup with a straw to her pale, cracked lips.
“Mom?” Ethan’s voice is soft, but it cuts through the room’s stillness like a bell.
Her head turns. Her eyes, which have been glassy and unfocused for days, flicker and then sharpen. They land on Ethan. A slow, radiant smile spreads across her face, a smile of pure, undiluted joy that I haven’t seen in years. It’s like watching a withered plant suddenly bloom in fast-motion.
“My boy,” she whispers, and her voice is shockingly clear. “My golden boy.”
Her hand, thin and mottled with age spots, lifts from the quilt and reaches for him. He moves to the bedside and takes it, his other hand stroking her hair. She ignores me completely. I am standing by the door, holding my breath, suddenly as substantial as a ghost. The past ten years—the emergency room visits, the battles with insurance companies, the nights spent sleeping in a chair by this very bed—vanish into thin air. They are erased by a single, dazzling smile for the son who just arrived.
He is the sun. He flies in from Bali or Thailand or wherever he’s been “finding himself” for the last decade, and she turns toward him, soaking in the light. I am just the satellite, the one who does the thankless work of keeping the planet spinning on its axis.
The First Usurpation
Later that afternoon, Karen, the hospice nurse, arrives for her daily visit. She’s a kind, no-nonsense woman in her fifties who I’ve developed a quiet, professional rapport with. She’s checking Mom’s vitals when Ethan swoops in.
“Karen, right? I’m Ethan, the son,” he says, extending a hand and a thousand-watt smile. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’re doing for my mother. It’s a godsend. I just flew in from Bali to be here and see this through.”
Karen’s professional demeanor softens instantly. “Oh, how wonderful. It’s so good you could make it.”
He launches into a charming, funny story about him and Mom getting lost on a road trip when he was a teenager. It’s a good story. I’ve heard it before. As he talks, he picks up the can of ginger ale on the bedside table. I’d established a strict rule with the nurses: water only, with an occasional sip of diluted juice. The sugar in sodas was making her agitated.
“A little joy won’t hurt, right?” Ethan says to Karen, already popping the can open. He pours a little into a cup and holds the straw to Mom’s lips. She sips eagerly. He looks at the nurse, a conspiratorial wink in his eye. “Sometimes you have to break the rules for the ones you love.”
Karen smiles, completely won over. “A little sip is just fine. It’s about comfort now.”
I stand in the doorway, my fists clenched at my sides. My carefully constructed routine, built on doctor’s orders and a decade of experience, has just been dismantled with a wink and a can of soda. I am the warden. He is the fun-loving savior.
That night, after Ethan has gone to bed in the guest room, I’m walking past the living room and hear Karen on her cell phone, her voice low.
“He’s just a saint, her son is, flying in from halfway across the world. The daughter… well, she seems a bit stressed. You know, very high-strung. You can tell he’s a comfort to both of them.”
The Performance of Grief: The Curated Agony
I wake up not to my alarm, but to the insistent buzzing of my phone on the nightstand. It’s a cascade of notifications from Facebook. I squint at the screen, my mind still thick with sleep. Ethan has tagged me in a post.
I tap it open, and the breath catches in my throat. It’s a photograph, professionally filtered in dramatic black and white. It’s a close-up of Ethan’s hand holding Mom’s. His hand is strong and tan; hers is frail and threaded with the IV line Karen inserted yesterday. The lighting is soft, artistic, like something out of a magazine. It’s a beautiful, poignant image of suffering.
The caption is what makes the rage begin to simmer.
“Being here for my amazing Mom in her final chapter. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I wouldn’t trade this time for anything. She held my hand when I was small, and now I get to hold hers. Feeling heartbroken but so grateful. #FamilyFirst #EndOfLifeCare #MothersLove”
I stare at the phone. The hardest thing he’s ever done? He arrived yesterday. He slept for eight uninterrupted hours in a comfortable bed while I was up at 2 AM and 4 AM to administer the sublingual morphine that keeps Mom from crying out in her sleep. I was the one who, just an hour ago, changed her soiled linens and gently washed her with a warm cloth. There is no black-and-white filter that can make that reality beautiful.
The comments are already flooding in. Dozens of them. Aunts, cousins, his endless supply of friends from around the world.
‘Ethan, you are such a good son. Your mother is so lucky to have you.’
‘This is what family is all about. Sending you so much strength.’
‘Thinking of you during this incredibly difficult time. You have a beautiful soul.’
I click the phone off and place it face down on the nightstand. My own difficult time has been happening in silence for 3,651 days. His has been happening for less than twenty-four hours, and it’s already a public spectacle.
The Cashmere Cure
The HMO’s on-hold music is a tinny, synthesized version of a song that was probably popular thirty years ago. I’ve been listening to it for fifteen minutes, trying to get authorization for a more advanced pressure-sore mattress. Mom’s savings can’t cover it, but the insurance company is arguing it’s not yet “medically necessary.”
“No, I understand that’s the policy,” I say for the third time into my headset, pacing the length of the kitchen. “But her mobility has decreased significantly in the past seventy-two hours. I’m looking at the protocol, section 4, subsection B, and it clearly states…”
Ethan walks in, phone to his ear, and gives me an apologetic smile. He’s on a call, too. But he’s not talking to an insurance agent. He’s talking to someone with a cheerful, customer-service voice. He holds up a finger, asking me to wait. Annoyed, I turn my back, trying to focus.
“Yes, the grey one. And the lavender-chamomile diffuser oil,” he says into his own phone. Then he hangs up my call. He physically reaches over and presses the ‘end call’ button on my cell’s screen.
“What the hell, Ethan?”
“Forget that,” he says, his voice buzzing with excitement. “I took care of it. I just ordered a bunch of stuff online to make her more comfortable. A pure cashmere blanket, that oil diffuser for aromatherapy, some silk pillowcases. The works. Put it on Mom’s card.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “You did what? On her credit card?”
“Yeah. She deserves the best, doesn’t she?” He looks so proud of himself, so pleased with his decisive, generous action.
“We can’t afford that, Ethan! She’s on a fixed income. A very, very fixed income. I have a budget. I have spreadsheets. Every single dollar is accounted for!” My voice is rising, getting shrill. The high-strung daughter is making her appearance.
He just shakes his head, a look of pity on his face. “Sarah, don’t be so cheap. It’s the end of her life. These are the memories we’re making. We’re not going to remember saving a few hundred bucks on a blanket. We’re going to remember that she was comfortable.”
An Audience of Neighbors
There’s a knock at the door. It’s Mrs. Gable from two houses down. I’ve exchanged pleasantries with her about the weather for a decade, nothing more. She’s holding a large casserole dish covered in aluminum foil.
“Oh, Sarah, hello dear,” she says, but her eyes immediately find Ethan, who has appeared in the hallway behind me. “And you must be Ethan. I saw your beautiful post on Facebook. My niece shared it. It just moved me to tears.”
Ethan steps forward, taking the hot dish from her. “That’s so kind of you. Please, come in. I’m Ethan.”
“Brenda Gable,” she says, beaming at him. “It just takes a special kind of person to drop everything and do what you’re doing. Flying all that way. Your mother must be so proud.”
I stand there, my hands empty, an awkward piece of furniture in my own hallway.
“She’s my hero,” Ethan says, his voice thick with emotion. He launches into a story about a time Mom took him fishing, just the two of them, after he’d scraped his knee. He embellishes it, adding details I know aren’t true, painting a picture of a magical, unbreakable bond. He makes it sound like they were soulmates, and I was just… there.
Mrs. Gable’s eyes are wide with sympathy. She touches his arm. “You hang in there. It’s the hardest job in the world.”
I think about the spreadsheet open on my laptop, the one detailing the slow, steady depletion of Mom’s life savings. I think about the phone call I have to make again to the HMO. I think about the way Mom’s skin feels like tissue paper under my fingers. That’s the hardest job in the world. Listening to this performance is a close second.
A History Rewritten
“Let’s find a nice picture for the service,” Ethan suggests later, pulling a dusty photo album from the bookshelf. He says it so casually, as if he’s planning a birthday party.
He sits on the edge of Mom’s bed, opening the book across her quilt. She’s awake, her eyes tracking his movements. He starts flipping through the plastic-covered pages.
“Oh, hey, look at this one!” he says, pointing to a faded photograph of a family trip to the Grand Canyon. He and my dad are grinning, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders. I’m in the background, a small, pouting figure in a big sun hat. I was miserable that whole trip, sick with a stomach flu.
“You were always so adventurous, Mom,” Ethan says, his voice soft and nostalgic. He’s not talking to me; he’s talking to her, and for her. “Always ready to just get in the car and go. I get that from you. Sarah was always so… cautious.”
I wait for Mom to correct him, to say something. To defend me.
Instead, a flicker of that same sharp clarity from yesterday returns to her eyes. She looks from the photo to me, standing by the window. “He’s right,” she says, her voice raspy but firm. “You were always such a worrier, Sarah. So serious.”
She turns her gaze back to Ethan, her expression softening into pure adoration. “Ethan knew how to have fun. He gets that from me.”
It’s a validation of a narrative I’ve been fighting my whole life. My caution wasn’t a flaw; it was a necessity. I was the one who remembered to pack the first-aid kit, who made sure the bills were paid on time, who kept the whole fragile enterprise of our family from flying apart while she and Ethan were off “having fun.” My responsibility wasn’t a strength; it was a personality defect.
He beams, patting her hand. As I watch, she grips his fingers. “I’m so glad you’re the one who’s here now,” she whispers, loud enough for me to hear. “You know what’s important.”
About the Author
