She’s wearing a white hospital gown with a white blanket covering her in a a room with cream walls that smell like pain and mothballs; her steady, slow breathing is loud, labored with those tubes up her nose. Her eyelids take long blinks that seem like she falls asleep then slowly she awakens and I can’t help but want to crawl up next to her to take a nap and just stay there with her, but I can’t and especially looking back now, I wish I did. Instead I somberly stand next to my mother and wait patiently for someone to add me into the conversation.