"Don't
touch tails. It's bad luck." I nevertheless picked it up and tossed it a little farther, twice, until
it fell heads up, the side with the queen of England. Then I picked it up and
kept it. I think you have to make your own luck. And in this domain, as in many
others, you're best served when you do it yourself. Today I know that rituals, good-luck charms, fetishes, even prayers can't
always protect us and those we love. Misfortune strikes
where it wishes. And when it comes, rituals lose their power. You have to act, fight.
One evening when I got home, I discovered my mother looking frightfully pale. She was short of breath, her features were drawn, and most worrisome of all, she was sitting down. My mother is always up and running all over the place. My father was at a loss to explain it. Unlike my mother and me, in this kind of situation, he was incapable of making a decision. He wasn't able to reason with my mother, who is rather authoritarian, hyperactive, who takes charge of making all decisions and doesn't take orders from anybody. She kept saying that it was only fatigue, that it would pass. I knew just by seeing her and hearing her weak, expressionless voice that she was in bad shape.
In the little movies I made up in my head, I'd often imagined my mother dying. I could see myself at her bedside, completely paralyzed by pain, crushed and distraught and completely incapable of reacting.
But faced with the reality, I reacted completely differently, without thinking, and with a coolness and authority that surprised me.
I called Dr. Gaston Choquette, whom Rene knew, and made an appointment for my mother the next afternoon at the Montreal Institute of Cardiology. The hardest part was convincing her to go.
"I'm your mother and I'm more than sixty years old. If I don't want to see your doctor, I'm not going."
Aside from Dr. Emile McDuff, who'd delivered her last ten children and who'd practically become a member of our family, my mother never had much respect for doctors. She didn't consider them infallible scientists and didn't think anyone should bow down before them. My mother didn't bow down to anybody.
Главная
Классика в лицах
Интересное о классике
Статьи
Литература
Ссылки
Контактная информация: