The following story is 100% true, and the events that followed happened from April 2015 – Present Day
I watched the movie Cool Hand Luke when I was going through depression in 2011. The film was about a veteran that got drunk and destroyed government parking meters and got sent to prison.
He, later on, gets a visit from his mom who is dying of lung cancer. Later on in the movie, he finds out that his mother passed away while he was still locked up in the cell.
Four years later after that film, my mom was rushed to the hospital. The first time I visited her she was sleeping, and my cousin asked, “is there anything you wanted to say?” I didn’t want to wake her up because she needed rest.
Then the second time I visited her, I walked into the room, and she was hooked up to a crazy breathing machine that forces air into her lungs to help her breathe. When she woke up, she saw me and tried to say with the mask on: “DREW! DREW!” The machines were going off like crazy.
My dad ran to the nurses to ask them what’s wrong with her. At that exact moment, I walked out of the room because I thought she was going to die right in front of me. I was about to step back in, and the nurses rushed in, and she said: “No, please no!!!!!” Then she screamed while they were forcing the mask back on. I didn’t see this going on, but I could hear it from around the corner. I was in utter shock, and I walked back into the waiting room.
My dad drove me home, and on the way home I panicked like she was in danger. I jumped out of my seat, and my dad slammed on the breaks and said what????? I couldn’t speak.
That night my dad was drinking all night, and I was trying to get the tv to work for him, and I didn’t get any sleep. In the morning I phoned my Aunty to ask how my mom was doing and didn’t get many answers. I started by saying if my mom died I would die too.
So they picked me up, brought me to the same hospital to get checked into the psych ward, waiting 12 hours to get in. I was locked up in the Psychiatric ward, and I begged the staff to let me see my mom. They didn’t listen.
It was one day later they let me see my mom at night. They wheeled me into the room, and she was unconscious on the bed and unresponsive because of the lack of oxygen to her brain. She had yellow eyes. All I could do is sit there and knowing she couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t talk to her. I said, “goodbye mom I love you.” They wheeled me back to the psych ward.
I went to bed and was woken up by the nurse saying: Drew your dads here to see you. I got up and sat in the doctor’s office, and I said, “What’s wrong dad?” He said, “Your mother just passed away.” I cried out loud and lunged toward him hugging him.
I stayed in the psych ward for another four days until they released me to see her funeral. I didn’t sleep that whole time and lost 20 pounds from the time I was in the psych ward which was five days. I still hear the screams of my mother helpless on the bed. I never got to say goodbye to her; this is how I relate to Cool Hand Luke.
Being separated from my mom like that (as did Cool Hand Luke) And both mom’s dying from smoking. I wish the movie didn’t become a reality. Every day I wake up and go through life and hear the screams of my mom and the suffering never stops. Now it’s been one year that my dad has been in the hospital because of a brain disease caused by Alcohol. We lost the house too and my cat Nigel died one year ago. A family of 5 down to 2.
My mom worked hard to support us and was always stressed from work. So she smoked to cope with it. She was a smoker since age 7 and smoked until her death at age 57. That’s 50 years of smoking tobacco heavy.
My mom was sexually abused as a kid. She told me this when I was going through depression in 2011.
She managed to start her own courier company that was making a quarter of a million dollars a year in 1990. She got into gambling but paid every credit card off and saved us from a financial crisis. All by working on the road delivering parcels and wire that weighed as much as 500 pounds. I was born in 1994 and dropped out of high school in grade 11 to help my mom with the company. Also working to assist her on my summers off as a kid.
My dad worked in a wire factory and first met my mom delivering to his workplace. That’s how they met. They got married and gave birth to my sister and me.
We were the happiest family, and I could have never asked for a better one.
My dad worked since he was young as well as my mom. Both hard working lower-middle class family. My dad worked hard labor in that wire factory pulling 2000 pounds of wire through a machine for minimum wage. There was so much corruption in that corporation that he wanted change for his workers. There were bosses stealing bonus salaries from the workers. The higher ups didn’t care and were only in it for themselves. After ten years of working, he was a manager and was making our family 40 thousand dollars a year. He eventually got fired from his job because what he was trying to change and it caused him to become more dependent on drinking.
He found his next job working for 17 dollars an hour. He was always a fantastic worker and could drive a forklift exceptionally well. He consistently cared about his co-workers and continuously fought for their right. He said because of the higher-ups not fixing the problem it affected the workers
My dad drank for 40 years as well.
This writing is all I can say at the moment. I’ve been up for 24 hours, and I’m mentally exhausted from the suffering of these terrible addictions. If I make another day, I’ll be refreshed and give you the whole story.