#Chapter 66 Dangerous Healing

For the first time in years, I looked at my mother's face in person, not in a blurry photograph on a phone screen. She looked terrible. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks were sunken. Her skin was pale. I could see signs of long term neglect all over her body. Her hands curled in towards her palms, her weight had dropped dangerously, and it was clear her muscles had been left to atrophy. I checked her chart. Her condition was listed as stable. She was comatose, and according to the prognosis written in some doctor’s careless scrawl, was never expected to wake up. They didn’t know my mother, and they didn’t know me. She would never just give up on life. She was a fighter. She just needed a little push. And I hadn’t come so far, gone through so much, just to give up on her at the end. I took one of her hands in mine. Her skin was cool and dry. Her bones felt brittle. I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew how to heal most major injuries. But her injuries had had years to heal. The