“This was supposed to be a regular “hi mom” visit. It was my...

“This was supposed to be a regular “hi mom” visit. It was my first time coming home in five years. I was expecting my mother to pick me up from the airport, but my sister-in-law was there when I landed. She told me that my mother was in the hospital. She was bleeding internally and had a blood clot in her leg. Right after we arrived, two surgeons sat me down, and told me they needed a decision immediately. They’d given my mother eleven units of blood and they wanted to amputate her leg and give her a colonoscopy bag. At first I asked if we could do nothing. But then I told them to go ahead and do it. And I think I made the wrong decision. She’s recovering now, and it’s becoming apparent that she’ll never be able to do basic things by herself. And I know my mother. She’s a very independent woman. She rakes her own leaves and blows the snow off her own driveway. She wouldn’t want to live like this. She’d never say this to me, but I think she feels that I let her down.”