Chapter 6

I was sitting on the bed just waiting when someone I hadn’t seen in 20 years stopped in the doorway looking around. Mom had passed at only age 63 from a heart attack. I should have been more mentally prepared I knew how poorly I was controlling the emotional dumps of being 11. But nope I broke right down and started bawling when I saw her standing there. How was I going to explain I hadn’t seen her in 20 years not the days from her point of view.

Mom crossed the room like a Drill Sargent going for the one guy that crossed his eyes during a dressing down. She grabbed me and pulled me into her arms and we just held each other and cried. She was crying to see the son she had last seen in a coma loaded into an Ambulance for transfer to a Hospital half a state away and I cried cause I was holding the one person that had stayed and loved me even when I tried my darnedest to make her life hell.

After a couple of minutes she pulled back to arms length. Get dressed, while I might not get lost twice going home the traffic will be much worse. I carried the bag into the bathroom and put on jeans and a tee shirt with my tennis shoes and when I came out we experienced a minor miracle and the nurse was standing there going over discharge instructions with mom and it was only 3pm so a full hour ahead of Hospital time.

I stopped next to Billy and took his small hand in my larger but more boney one. “Billy I want to thank you for be my friend while I was here and I want you to know that no matter when or where you are know that someone else out there is rooting for you and I hope you are Father make amazing recoveries. Be Strong but your mom is right sometimes its OK. to cry a little to get thru the real bad parts. “Good bye Mark and thanks for sitting with me and talking”

As I turned and started for the door I was meet by the Aide for the floor with the Required Wheelchair. I has spent hours walking around the halls but I couldn’t be trusted to walk to front door. I dropped into the wheelchair and as mom exited the room I looked up at the aide and pointed toward the elevator and said “once around the park James Then Home” I got a snort from the aide and an “enough of that” from mom.

Its was a bit windy and cool. I had found out during my Navy time that the coldest winter in California was a summer in the Bay Area but mom missed the memo and that tea shirt was not cutting it sitting there in that wheelchair.

Just seconds before I perished from frost bite Mom pulled up and Holy shit I had forgotten the land yacht my step dad had brought home for her a month after they got married. A 1973 Ford LTD Brougham that some friend of a friend sold because they had side swiped a telephone pole drunk and currently they had no license or insurance so didn’t need a car as much as they needed some cash.

3 weekends in a row my step-dad had disappeared to various salvage yards with one of my uncles and they would return and replace another of the broken pieces. After 3 weeks it was both drivable and you could get in and out of the drivers side door.

What it was not was one color. While 3 side were white and chrome the driver side was 4 different colors and only 2 sections had the chrome. I will say that it ran like a champ. It was 10 more years before rising gas prices forced her to let that Boat go.

The drive home was quiet both because mom hated driving in traffic and I was trying to use this time to get my emotions under some type of control whether illusionary or not.

She did ask about Billy but I said lets wait till we were home cause it wasn’t the happiest story and she needed to keep her mind on the road.

This was also the first time I spent any length of time thinking about what I was going to do with this second chance. I was yoyoing back and forth between the terror of what I knew I would feel and then do in the future and the desire to not be that person and that this time i could change it.

Could you change it. Are you born that way or do you grow to be that way. The Nature Vs Nurture argument but with deadly consequences if I got I wrong.

Four plus hours and we had finally made it home. My step-dad and brother waiting when we got out of the car. My littler brother ran over and hugged me then took one look at my partially shave head and laughed.

Why again do they shave only part of your head and leave you looking so odd?

My step-dad welcomed me home as he was hugging my mom. Not Huggers either of us and I appreciated that about him. Lets get inside before the mosquito’s figure out were here for the taking

There was a meatloaf and mashed potatoes on the counter and I went straight to the plates get some dinner. My folks were just talking by the kitchen table as I was laser focused on filling a plate. After I started eating I looked up long enough to see my brother across the table from me and just staring at me.

“What”? I said after swallowing the mouthful

David looked to if anyone else was around before answering. “JJ said there was so much blood and you never moved you had to be dead” “and mom cried every day”. He just looked down at the table as he finished.

“hey” I softly replied to get him to look back up. I got hurt but I am OK. now and I’ll get the cast off and the stitches out and I’ll be good as new and I’ll try not to make mom cry OK. He smiled at me and shook his head up and down. Now go watch TV or something it’s weird you watching me eat. He was out of there in a flash and past the folks as they came back into the kitchen area and mom started making herself a plate.

“so how you feeling?” Kevin asked as mom was sitting down to eat. “was hungry and tired” “now just tired.” “Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed”

“your mom says you made a friend while you were up there” I glanced over at mom when he said that then back to him “his name is Billy and him and his dad got burned real bad when their camp stove blew up”

“some of those older camp stoves always seemed more dangerous than they were worth what with all the pumping to get pressure up and leaking as they got old.”