I’m having a little trouble with reality—not just lately, I’ve always questioned—What is the truth? The Earth — is it round or is it flat? I thought we settled that shit ages ago when they stopped making maps that read: Here, there be dragons. Dragons, indeed — the world has become topsy-turvy. Everything is in question — new shit has come to light — rumors, fake news. The National Enquirer—inquiring minds want to know — you know? Seriously, remember that time when they said there were spider eggs in Bubble-Yum bubble gum? And then, there was that story about how Mikey died because he mixed Soda Pop and Pop Rocks. Oh bless, Bat Boy. The Lochness Monster. Big Foot. Paranormal Phenoms. UFOs. Alien abductions. Roswell! Hours of speculative entertainment. Did that really happen? The Holocaust. The Moon landing. The evidence is astounding that these things happened. Why are they being questioned now? Who gains by contradicting the facts? Leave out certain details that negate the authenticity of reality. Did he or didn’t he? That depends on whether he has a good defense lawyer. Everything is in question. The truth is out there. There is speculation that our entire existence is taking place in a simulation. That notion makes my brain hurt. I need a reset button. “Don’t let your face freeze like that,” is what my mother used to say whenever I was angry with the world and was quietly puzzling over how to fix it. or maybe I wasn’t thinking at all; maybe I simply shut down for a little while to escape the conundrum of life. Yeah — Resting Bitch Face. Good grief, they have a name for it! Do men ever get called out for having a Resting Asshole Face? (“Awww, isn’t he so cute when he’s pensive?”) Ah, the double standard of living! Wait a day or two — opinions change. Is it global warming, or is it a naturally occurring phase of the Earth? Soy doesn’t mess with your estrogen levels. Brown rice is good for you — but beware of the arsenic! Wait for it; coffee and red wine will be considered bad for you again. Then they’ll say salt is good for you and MSG is fantastic! Pot is not a gateway drug — cigarettes and alcohol are, but no one’s going to fight that booze battle again— Prohibition didn’t work — it made things worse. Cigarettes are aces for the tobacco industry, “Light ‘em if you got ‘em!” Ad campaigns and taxing cigarettes might change hearts and minds, maybe wallets but now there are e-cigarettes. And they’re legalizing Pot — go figure — Let’s just make more problems. It is a fact that “bread and circuses” keep the minions docile, Take away the vices and the natives get restless. I always say everything in moderation — too much of anything can eventually lead to bad results. Whatever! They’re always discovering new illnesses — syndromes to prescribe the latest drug to cure it — so whatever ails you will be all better soon. Although the side effects are a drag, the benefits outweigh your discomfort, which they say will pass. You’ll adapt — that’s what people do. Opiates are a magic bullet for pain management and leave you craving for the next dose. They claim that anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs aren’t addictive yet, you must be weaned off them. Off-label drug use is a great replacement for approved drugs that aren’t working to solve your medical issues. Has anyone ever asked why they aren’t working? Anyway — I guess it’s perfectly fine — until people start dying. The doctor at the ER was quick to say — “No, the statin didn’t cause your mother’s massive stroke.” Wile E. Coyote and Kenny always come back from the dead by the next episode or scene. That’s the beauty of cartoons — anything can happen, But — reality doesn’t work that way. There’s no reset button when you’re dead. Unless, of course, this existence is only a simulation. Entropy, Gravity, Relativity, the Big Bang. The war to end all wars. Palestine. Israel. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Iran. China. Taiwan. Korea. Russia. Ukraine. There’s no reset button when the bombs fall. My mother is dead. My father is dead. I’m glad they’re not here for this — the Greatest Generation — they survived the Depression and World War II. The Cold War. They grieved when Kennedy was shot. They saw a man walk on the moon. Cell phones were a mystery to them, and they barely knew how to use the one they had in the car for an emergency. (It wasn’t charged.) They would never understand our world now — it would only confuse them. Scare them. Here, there be dragons.
This poe-umm, quite the ramble of dot-connecting—I’m sorry it’s so long—it was only yesterday that I added one more thing to tap into the core:
The doctor at the ER was quick to say—
“No, the statin didn’t cause your mother’s massive stroke.”
As a writer, you must go where the pain lives—you can’t have light without dark.
Thirteen years ago, the unthinkable happened. My mother died on August 3, 2011, from a massive stroke.
The morning of August 2nd, my mother got up and made her bed just like she did every day; by 7 PM that evening, she was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital, less than 24 hours later she was dead.
When I called home like I always do on a Tuesday evening at 7 PM, my father answered the phone, the poor thing was scared and confused. “They just took your mother in the ambulance; she isn’t good…” Then he set down the phone to go answer the door, and after that, the signal on my cellphone dropped, and I couldn’t get through to him again; the phone was off the hook. When I gave up, I let loose a wail of grief that I’m sure the entire neighborhood heard and had chills run down their spines hearing my keening. I didn’t know what hospital they took her to—or how “not good” was bad. Thankfully, the first one I called, she was already there being seen to. Missy, the ER nurse (a family friend, a trusted small-town voice, she knew who I was as soon as she heard my voice— “You sound like your mother.”) She put the doctor on the phone, and he said, “You better get here.” (We live over an hour away.) She had been intubated; I told him she had a DNR. Over an hour later, the doctor showed me the CAT Scan of her brain; it was clear that she was already gone; her brain was absolutely soaked in blood. Life as I knew it changed. I sat at her bedside through the night, listening to her snore as her body began the process of shutting down. (She would’ve been mortified to know she was snoring.) She died a little after noon on Wednesday the 3rd. I could feel her feet going cold even before her last breath.
Our relationship was complicated, not bad, just complicated mother-daughter things. I photographed her neatly made bed at the house. The chore of bedmaking was one of our mother-daughter battles—every time I make my bed, I think of her making her bed for the last time—not knowing it was going to be the last time she was going to do it.
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