You Can't Be Twenty On Sugar Mountain

Even though you think you're leaving there too soon.  My friend, my friend, my dear, defenseless friend who is undergoing radiation treatment and receives morphine every three hours, my heart is breaking.  We visited for hours yesterday, both of us, all of us, in shock; you can only pull up the boot straps and haul.  Wait and pray, wait and wish, wait and feel hollow for the lack of power.

She is in Roswell Park Hospital, hooked up to tubes and monitors that drip sustaining fluids and record breath and pulse.  The family is numb, as were the faces of the other families who were treading the linoleum floor, as were the mobile patients who walked in gowns, padding softly so as not to disturb the  life force still inside them, in hopes of waking the lion of immunity for a good fight.  The majority were close to my age or younger.  Hell on earth.

So, I look at the entity who was my father, whose own mantra was me mine me, who wrote in his will which arrived last Friday in the middle of all other messes that my brother got the dilapidated house and I was to receive a dollar.  Well, I knew that ahead of time after reading a note that he had written in Jesus' name saying such.  The will, however, contained extra sentences, and I guess my naivete was in not understanding that a will allows you to get last digs in as part of its purpose.  After doling out "numerous gifts and monies" to me, it states that I didn't show caring or compassion for him or my mother.  It must be that parallel universe thing in operation again.

No, I don't care about the money, but the intent of his dying breath was to let me know how worthless and grasping he considered me.  I was a parasite, a slut, a drudging sow.  His alcoholic, crazed brain painted a world populated by duplicitous women, ready to attach themselves as leeches in exchange for food and shelter, and I have to remember that.  The flush of anger has passed, but there is a pervasive sorrow for I often have to remind myself that there is value in who I am.  I will get past this, it will not define my life.  I suspect had he been diagnosed, he might have been labeled borderline.

He lived to be 85.  My friend is a year younger than I, well loved, a guiding light for her family, a warm, loving human who should be here, whole and untouched by the illness that has grown like underground mycelium throughout her body.  This event will change my own existence, this will become part of who I am.  Jordan, Barbara, Nancy, Mom; each of you are in me, and resonate in the air, the water, the rains and the green shoots pushing upwards through damp earth.

I see my Mom in the grass blades that she taught me to blow on as reeds held between thumbs; Nancy is there when I remember the grubby young girl I was and how she pulled me forward; Jordan would make me a hot sandwich to put in my pocket to keep my hands warm while waiting for a bus in snow; Barbara is in my degree, for her counsel during a hard time got me to make a difficult decision.  How can I be worthless, when I have their good will?

Night comes, the sounds of today are melting into a yesterday.  Please sleep gently, gratefully, and in innocence.  Sometimes it is all we have.  Good night.