David Adewumi

Teeth shattered from the tubes slammed down her throat, eyelids heavy from the sedating affect of the myriads of heart strengthening, fluid removing, pain-killing drugs, skin slick and swollen edema-like from a heart not strong enough and a kidney that failed.

That was my mother this past June. As she lay on her death bed, a best friend, accustomed to seeing my mom smiling and cheerful and joyful, had to leave the room, for the sight of her laying there, weak, helpless, and in despair was too much for him. Her ability to retain consciousness was tenuous at best, and her mobility was limited to fingers and her eyes.

Mama mi laid there on her death bed, without a hope.

Three short weeks prior to those last days, my mother was staying at home, body tired as the energy was robbed from her, feet and stomach and body swollen from the excess fluids in her body. My sister, who lived in Chicago, returned home for a visit, as she was set to move to Germany later in the year. Upon seeing my mother, her cause for concern was significant, as to her unfamiliar eyes (which, was a good thing) my mom had gained at least 50 pounds since last they had seen each other.

She arrived on Friday. My mom was in the hospital by Sunday. I had just left town for the summer on Thursday.

Due to a lack of regular doctor visits and check-ups, the medical team started at ground zero — as is common, they deliberately and methodically eliminated possible conditions and illnesses one by one. After speaking with a friend –who had worked many a year in emergency medicine — about her conditions, he immediately said CHF.

Congestive heart failure.

Her heart was not strong enough to function at its normal capacity, and day by day, week by week had subsided to the point where her breaths were shortened and her days numbered.

Upon my return to visit my mom a short week later, it seemed things had taken a turn for the better — the Doctors and nurses had effectively diagnosed and treated my mother, she had lost a lot of fluids -and in fact to my own eyes looked gaunt after having seen her so heavy. She looked to be released from the hospital.

Then, as things often do, it took a turn for the worse.

Within days she had contracted a bacterial infection. Her condition worsened. As the doctors considered a strategy of transporting her to nearby Hershey Medical Center for care by their expert physicians, she stopped breathing, leading to the aforementioned circumstance — they had to get her breathing at any cost, including her mega-watt toothy grin.

If she’d been in transit when her lungs failed to expire breath, with almost all certainty, she would have died then…

Close friends of the family wanted to prepare us to face the inevitable grief from the certain oncoming demise. ‘Give up,’ they said, ‘all hope is lost…she’s fought the good fight but she’s not coming back…you have to accept this.’

And with a bare thread her life hung in the balance, as she lay, not breathing, supported by a hideous combination of tubes, wires, machines, pumps… my mother died.

C’est la vie they’ll tell us in French. Asi es la vida in Spanish. And undoubtedly countless other idioms to express with a shaking sigh “that’s life.”

That’s life; that when insurmountable odds and probabilities form an Everest before you … you must back down in shame, in pain, in defeat knowing that it’s time to quit. Not only quit, head down in defeat, but with the encouragement and support of friends, family, and passers-by.

“You’d better just give up now. Save yourself the trouble, the worry, the heartache, and the pain…all hope is lost…accept….accept…accept.”

I call it ‘The Art of Giving Up,’ knowing when you’ve had your fill of life’s hazards, and obstacles, and pitfalls and potholes — and you lay awake at night, wondering for all of you “can I take anymore? Can I truly stand in the face of this storm, and escape with my life?”

And you hear that little nagging voice in the back of your head “all hope is lost…accept…accept…accept…just give up now.”

And so you give up. You quit. You surrender.

Many times in our lives, in mine own life, I am faced with a foe that even one full of folly would turn back from. For some in this country now it is a beast that wreaks havoc on their economic stability — one that has ravaged most of the forgotten corners of the world. It is of course, the crows of disease, death, dissonance, and the doldrums of despair. An emotional pain that far surpasses the joy of a life lived to the full, with joyous breaths sucked each morning. A mentally incapacitating blow perhaps.

Every single moment of every single day of every single year it seems as if our lives, our bodies, our minds, and our spirits are levies buckling under the pressure of a storm with all its gale and fury and might.

And so we choose defeat, freed from the cold, assuming logic that there lay a path to victory, and drowning in the overwhelming emotion of our fear, and pain, and worries and doubts.

Give up.

I blinked teary eyes as I looked at my mother there, lying on her death bed. Was all hope truly lost? Should we bow our heads before the mighty dragon of illness, disease, pain and suffering?

Should we, in our ever heightening despair, turn towards the one certainty that this fable human race holds in reserve — defeat. surrender. despair. render.

No.

Because she came back. She breathed again. Life soared through her veins and she who was promised for death by both those who practiced medicine and those who had professed faith and love towards her.

The way my mother tells it, she died and went to heaven, but was told by God that it was not yet her time. I’ve heard similar accounts from those who survive near-death incidents — who can doubt it and who can validate it?

Day after agonizing day, her progress moving in leaps and bounds, miraculously she fought and won, little by little.

Within weeks she was checked out of the hospital, forwarded to the rehabilitation center, scars in tow from her epic ordeal, and smiling as joyful as ever, thankful to her God for her deliverance.

We were happy to have her returned safely home. Weeks later assured that the use of the permanent catheter they had inserted surgically with anticipation of a lifetime of use …would not be necessary.

A miracle?

Was victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, was it yet handed as a gift from the one to whom we owe our allegiance, or was it simply some statistical anomaly, the likelihood of which suggests however improbable perhaps one in a great score would survive…

She won. We won. WE, her family, her blood true, never ever gave up. We refused the chorus of both the wise and the loved. We refused their counsel, their welcome but false encouragement, we refused their defeat. How many friends, family, and others came by, day after laborious day, to bring great spirits of cheer and joy and love and remain the ever-present and constant vigil over the matriarch of our pack.

A friend advised me to not lose our good cheer — that our joy would inspire her soul to fight on…perhaps this counsel was the turning point in the battle.

We would never give up. We would never quit. We would never lose hope.

And those who believed cried out to a powerful yet loving King, desperate for a sign of his mercy, confident that his will be done, yet questioning whether that will returned the life of their queen.

Ayaba.

Yet even as I write this, the dragon has reared his ugly head…and again my mother has returned to the hospital, afflicted by illnesses the type both seen and unseen.

Again?

No.

It’s too much.

Doubt? Worry? Fear?

We can’t possibly win again. How could we, see-sawed to the highest and lowest in the short work of a few months, possibly regain our leverage and climb our way back up.

Was she returned to us, her life a mark of great testimony, yet to only be taken, mind and body from us before the year’s end?

Pain. Hurt. Bitter.

Viktor Frankl, famed survivor of Auschwitz, and a prominent physcho analyst wrote, in his book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning,’ ““The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.”

But then, with that in mind, you must know, that the single and most simple truth to The Art of Giving Up is this…

Don’t.