Memories Part 3

Just a few minutes after getting ready for bed on that frightening evening, my grandparents called. As I remember it, they had just gotten back from a trip to Mexico and called us from the airport to see how we were doing. This memory may not be correct, because for the life of me I cannot figure out why they would call us from their and not wait until the got home. But I digress.

My mom answered the phone and chatted with my grandma for a few minutes before handing the phone to me. I talked with my grandma for a while conversing as well as a four-year old is capable of doing before handing the phone back to my mother.

She was sitting on the arm of the chair in our tiny living room chatting with Grandma, when she abruptly stiffened up and fell backwards. She dropped the phone and hit her neck on the arm of the chair with tremendous force. My mother had descended into another seizure.

My toddler brain could think of doing only one thing. I grabbed the phone and began to scream at my grandparents to get there as fast as they could becuase there was "something wrong with Mama". I didn't know what I was doing, I was terrified. All I knew for sure, was that this phone was my connection to the outside world. I needed rescuing. I needed some security. At that moment, that phone became my lifeline.

I was still screaming with anguish into the phone for my grandparents to "get here" as they walked in the door. I remember running to my grandfather (Papa) and hugging him while tears streamed down my face.

My memory blurs a bit from here. I recall the ambulance arriving. I recall my mom being placed into the ambulance. I remember going to the hospital and trying my best to explain to the doctor what had happened (I was later told that he didn't believe me). She spent a few days in the hospital and was later diagnosed with Epilepsy. She had been experiencing Grand Mal seizures.