Excerpt 1 - Intro

I think it’s my first memory of automatic sliding doors. There were two sets, and as we walked passed both, we stood there for a few seconds, that felt like minutes. I remember not being able to understand exactly what was happening. I held my dad’s hand and stood by his side, clueless. In retrospect, I recall it feeling like one of those children’s TV shows where you never see the adults face because they were so much taller than the child, and the picture gets cut off right around the grownups midriff. I remember hearing a rush of noise spilling towards our direction. It slowly gained speed and volume as it drew closer, something like a subway train approaching the platform. That was my moment of realization. That was when I understood that this was absolutely beyond any doubt happening in front of me.

They wheeled the stretcher right passed us and I remember seeing her eyes fighting to stay open, as they rolled back. She was covered with white sheets and they were covered in blood. It feels surreal reflecting on the memory right now; I can only imagine how unbelievable it must have felt in that instance. My last memory is her being rolled away and someone telling my dad and I to sit in the waiting room. I don’t remember anything that happened after that. Not that day, not when she was released from the hospital, none of the events that followed. I have a faint memory of being home with my dad when the phone rang before this all happened. Someone called to say that my mom had been in an accident. I’m not sure if it was the police, the hospital or a relative, but it's as if there’s a blank space between that call and us standing in front of the hospital doors. I have no recollection of what transpired afterwards.

I would have only been four or five at the time and I don’t remember much from that era, so it came as a surprise when I recalled that day. That memory had been tucked away and over the years layers upon layers of other thoughts had been piled over top. The only reason it ever came back up now is because of this project. I need to make sense of and understand everything that my mother has been through in her life. I need to understand why she is who she is, before I can sort out who I will be.