7:30 PM on a cold January evening, I get a frantic call from my step dad.  He said he found my mom at the foot of the basement stairs.  She was lying in a pool of blood and unresponsive.  She had serious head trauma.  The ambulance had picked her up and he was following it to the hospital.  I told him I was on my way.

   I jumped in my car and set out for the 3 hour drive.  The wind was fierce that night and my car drifted when the wind would gust.  I was frightened to the bone.  Thirty minutes into the drive, my brother called.  He told me the doctor was with her and they were doing tests.  She was still unconscious, but she was breathing.  I asked when the last time anyone had heard from mom.  He said our step dad had spoken to her on the phone at 10:30 AM, but grandma had been trying to reach her since noon.  I told him I'd be there as soon as I could.  The creeping thought, of my mom laying by herself for half a day after falling down the stairs, haunted me the rest of the drive.

   The drive seemed like it took 6 hours.  I had time to reflect on my mom.  She became pregnant with me when she was only 18.  She was home for Christmas break from her first semester away at college.  Her and my dad had been dating for a few months, but he was not in school.  He was a bit wild and not really college material.  My mom was wicked smart and could have done anything.  Instead, she dropped out of school to marry my dad and have me.  Did she regret that?  Possibly.  Did she ever make me feel that way?  Not once.  She never even told me that was how it happened.  I found that out later.  I guess that's why I could never figure out why my mom and dad were together.  He never grew up.  Drinking and women were always more important than my mom or me.  He and my mom had my brother four years later.  We were one big, happy family...without the happy.  At least, it wasn't happy for my mom.  She stuck with my dad long enough to get a nursing degree by going to night school and then securing a good job in a nearby city.  Then one summer day, she told my brother and I that she was leaving my dad and we were moving.  I was mad.  I didn't want to move.  All my friends were here.  I wasn't worried about her happiness.  I objected with defiant obstinancies. 

   We moved and I adjusted.  My mom had a good job and most importantly there was no more arguing. There was peace in our little apartment.  After a year, my mom started dating a doctor.  He treated her like she deserved.  He was nice to my brother and I.  After another year, they were married.  We moved into this huge house and I had everything I could ever imagine.  My mom had turned our lives around in short order.  She was amazing.  My brother and I got to do things we had never thought possible.  Was I grateful?  Did I tell my mom how much I appreciated everything she sacrificed while married to my dad?  Not in so many words, but she knew.  Didn't she?

   I finally arrived at the hospital.  I found out the room number and went up the elevator.  When the doors opened, I saw my family.  They were all standing outside the ICU room.  My step dad said, "There's nothing they can do."  He was crying.  My brother was crying and he hugged me.  I was lost.  I did not know what to do.  My mom was always here when this stuff happened.  I asked to see her.  I went into the room.  She was on a ventilator and hooked up to a lot of machines.  Her face and head were swollen.  It did not look like her.  I hadn't seen her in a month...New Years Day to be exact.  She was beautiful then.  This can't be her.  It was. 

   My step dad and my brother told me that she must have slipped while climbing the stairs and fallen backwards on to the hard tile.  It was a new house and the wooden basement stairs were slick.  They were to have a carpet runner installed but it had not been done yet.  My mom was wearing a pair of thick, fuzzy socks and evidently slipped.  I too had slipped, on a couple of occasions, while going down the same stairs.  "How could this be happening?" I thought. 

   My mom's parents had also arrived and they were beyond devastated.  My grandma would not leave my mom's bedside for the next couple of days.  Her parents were both 85.  How horrible to be that age and have to watch your child die like this.  I felt terrible for them.  My son was only 4 at the time.  I had to try and explain to him what happened.  He wanted to see her, but I thought it would not be the memory he should be left with.  He didn't understand why he couldn't see "mamaw".  I was 34 and couldn't comprehend the situation.  I could only imagine what he was thinking. 

  My step dad had several neurosurgeons come in and give their opinions.  They all said the same thing.  She would never regain consciousness.  Her brain was damaged beyond repair.  She had a living will.  So my step dad told us we all needed to say our goodbyes and prepare for them to remove the artificial respirator.  I kept thinking I would wake up from this terrible dream.  I never did.  Over the next day and a half a constant parade of friends and family came to day their goodbyes.  At first, I resented all these people taking up my mom's final hours.  Then I realized, she had touched their lives too.  They needed to say goodbye. 

   The time came on Friday February 1st, 2008, at about 6:30 PM, for me to say goodbye.  I went into the room alone.  I held her hand and kissed her forehead.  I told her she was, without a doubt, the best mom in the entire world.  I told her how sad I was that my son would not get to grow up with her in his life.  I told her how much I appreciated everything she had sacrificed for me and my brother.  I told her how sorry I was for being a drunk like my dad and for putting her through that grief.  I told her I would continue with my sobriety and make her proud.  I kissed her again and said, "Goodbye, mom."  I then left the room.  I went to the commissary with my brother and had some coffee.  Never of us could be in the room when she was taken off the ventilator.  She had my aunts and uncles with her for that.  They said she went peacefully.

   She was an organ donor.  However, she had enough brain activity during the qualification exam to exclude her from doing so.  She did get to donate her eyes, some skin, and tendons.  The doctors said it could help up to 60 other people.  She was thinking of others to very end.