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I received the devastating phone call the very same night Cliff bared his soul. I haven't properly digest the magnitude of what he honestly wanted me to know, when an unknown land number called me.
It was the hospital. Mom was warded in the ICU. She started with a chest pain and went to the hospital alone, gripping her heart, hoping the pain was just transient.
The doctors ordered a lot of tests and by the time the results came out, the pain had already left. She thought she could spare me the worry by deciding not to tell me about it, since she was feeling much better then.
She wrote my name and number as the emergency contact during admission. Just in case, a worse case scenario pops up.
Indeed, the worst case scenario did.
The next day, under the watch of the hospital staff, she developed stroke. Not only was she found with muscle weakness, she had what the doctors call global aphasia. The loss of ability to understand language, unable to understand what people says and unable to express herself in words, be it spoken or written.
Mom was sent for brain scans, and the hospital staff decided it was time to call the emergency number attached.
That very night, I booked a flight to return to mom. One way ticket. I called mom many times and attempted to reach her on the phone. It was engaged. At that point, I haven't grasp the severity of her condition that she has no energy to answer the phone, which battery was dead, neither had she the ability to speak nor listen.