Mother Mary comes to me

My first voice mail of the day was this: "Kieran, it's Mom. Give me a call. It's about Aunt Eileen."

No matter how sick or dead someone is, we have an unwritten rule in my family--never say in the message what's actually wrong. The words "It's about..." should be enough to make the point.

I didn't detect hysteria in my mother's voice, so I knew my aunt wasn't dead. But I knew that she was scheduled to have stents put in her arteries today. Perhaps something went wrong.

I've always been close to my mother's side of the family. My maternal grandmother, whose name and birthplace earned her the nickname Mary, Queen of Scots, practically raised me while my mother worked. Aunt Eileen, my mother's younger sibling, is my godmother. Her three children have been like brothers and a sister to me.

When I finally got hold of my mother, she told me the news: Aunt Eileen had the stents put in, but there were complications. She was hemorrhaging internally and had lost consciousness. She was on a respirator and in the critical care unit.

"Honest to God," she said, "I guess this happens when you get older."

"No, Ma," I said impatiently, in my usual parental role-reversal voice, "there are plenty of 65-year-olds who've never spent a day in the hospital."

"Well, that's true," she said, as if having an epiphany.

"Look at you--a stroke, a heart attack, a mastectomy. Why do you think you had those things?"

"Stress," she said.

"Exactly. And now your source of stress has been removed." I was talking about my father, who died 5 years ago.

I'm not a very religious person, but I do pray. I don't say Hail Marys or Our Fathers or even direct my prayer toward God. I think of my late grandmother, who died in 1983. In my family she's just about considered a saint. I truly believe she watches over me and is my protector. My cousin Denise, who is a year younger than I and who was also close to her, feels that way, too. Nanny, as we called her, appears in my dreams, especially during stressful times. Today while thinking about my aunt in the hospital, I felt my grandmother's presence. Whaddaya think, Nan? I said. It's not her time, she said.

Still, I told two of my co-workers I was a little edgy about the situation, and they offered to pray for my aunt. "Don't you want to go to the hospital and be with her?" C. said. I did, but somehow I felt she was going to pull through. "I'll see her after work," I told C.

I called Mom before I left work to see how things were. Aunt Eileen had been stabilized but was still in the CCU.

"Kim [my sister-in-law] asked me why I didn't run down to the hospital," Mom said. "She said, 'If my sister was near death, I'd be by her side the whole time.' I said, 'We're not that kind of family.' "

I laughed, but it was true. Maybe it's because we're Irish and stuff our feelings. We're not like Aunt Eileen's family, which is half-Italian. Five years ago, I got a call from Mom at 3:00 a.m., which can never be a good thing. But I wasn't surprised by what she said.

"Your father passed away about an hour ago," my mother said matter-of-factly.

"Oh. You doing OK?" I asked.

"Yeah, fine. Thank God it's over," she said.

"OK, Ma, call me if you need anything." We hung up.

I looked over at Luis, who was wide awake, staring at me. "What happened?" he asked anxiously.

I yawned. "My father died," I said and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Luis didn't sleep the rest of the night. He is still traumatized by my reaction.

When I arrived at the hospital my cousins and their wives were there. They came up and hugged me. "It's so great of you to come," Gus said. This quality of selflessness is one I cherish about my family; they are without question salt of the earth.

Throughout my life, Aunt Eileen has stood by me. She went head to head with my father on many occasions when he threatened to hit me. She'd defend me to anyone who had anything negative to say about gay people. She was the first family member to invite my boyfriend at the time to Christmas dinner, and everyone treated him no differently than they did my brothers' and cousins' girlfriends. A few years ago, after not having seen me for several years, she said, "You're so together now and comfortable with yourself." It felt good to hear that. "When you first came out, you were so, oh, I don't know, militant. You thought we wouldn't like you because you were gay." She was right. I adorned myself with pink triangles, lambdas, and Freedom Rings like they were badges of honor. "I didn't like you very much then." My heart sank. Then she hugged me and said, "but I always loved you."

The first thing I noticed when I saw Aunt Eileen lying in the hospital bed was how much she looked like my grandmother. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother in the hospital as she was dying, and I had flashbacks. Aunt Eileen looked old--no makeup, no teeth, in a hospital gown. No one wants their loved ones, or anyone, to see them in such a vulnerable state. I felt my eyes well up when I heard her talk. She was certainly not her usual self, but she didn't stop talking. That's when I knew she was going to be all right.

The doctor, it turns out, had given Aunt Eileen a shot of Heparin and aspirin last night in preparation for her stent procedure today. Both thin the blood, and that may have been the cause of her hemorrhaging today. She lost 4 pints of blood, which probably accounted for her loss of consciousness. After she had three stents put in, her blood sugar was about 170 mg/dL, which is high but in line with her diabetes. But then suddenly it shot up to 500 and her body must have gone into shock.

The nurse discovered that her oxygen level was very low, and, for a split second, she was gone. She had to have CPR administered to bring her back.

I was in the hospital room with my cousins Gus and John and their wives. My aunt was very thirsty, so I fed her ice cubes.

"I saw my mother," Aunt Eileen said to me, excitedly grabbing my hand.

My eyes widened. "Really? Tell me about it."

"She was wearing a blue dress, the one she wore to my wedding....She had two Scottie dogs with her, one black and one white. I asked her if I could keep one, and she said no. She told me I had to go back, and then she turned around and walked away."

Then, as an afterthought, she said, "I wonder why she didn't ask about my kids."

We all laughed. "Because," her son John said, "she's always around."