This morning (yesterday morning i don’t know where my days end anymore) Iwas sitting at my window looking, now, hoping for snow flakes to begin cascading down from the sky. Forget that college doesn’t start again for a week, I was waiting anticipatoraly just as any fifth-grader would. The anticipation mounts as I see the radar echos begin to display precipitation over head. I knew it would only be a little time before the air got humid enough for the flakes to make it sucessfully to the ground.
As it began, I began to jump and dance. There has not been a good snow since last March, nor a decent winter since 1996 in this town.
After sunrise (or at least after the world began lighten a bit) It was a wonderful sight. The local lake and surrounding forest would have been a wonderful sketch to pencil (provided I had any on had.)
At around 9, when the neighborhood kids began to trickle outside and play their snow games, I remembered all of my “old-school” friends from Orleans Village of the mid 80s (before I had been horribly uprooted from the neighborhood and sent to Detroit. But that’s a trama for later.). Snowball freeze tag. Softsnowball. Sledding down Brookside Hill. This wasn’t the 9-12" I used to remember, but this was close enough. All the good memories of winter.
Around 9, since I got the day off, I went to sleep.
At about one after I woke up, I thought about the last snowfall here in Northern Virginia: March 15, 1999. I remembered the date because the day before, my mom began to come down with something. He had asthma and allergies and a host of other health problems, but she wasn’t too much worse from them. In fact, the week before, she was in high spirits after recovering from a bus trip from Kentucky. Except for her consin annoying her on the trip, she was in good spirits and good health.
Monday the 15th, she wasn’t looking too good, but I assumed that it was weather related. Asthma tends to be tough on you when it rains and snows. However getting into Tuesday she wasn’t looking too much better.
After I got home from school around 8pm (Rehearsal for a school musical that was to open next weekend, headed by a lady which nobody could stand. . .but that’s a trama for later) she was looking even more terrible. Her hair was matted up, her eyes were red and puffy, and her face was mashed on one side as though she was sleepy too rigorously. She didn’t even have the strength to talk much. She also had a funny smell to her.
Dad and I asked her several times did she wish to do to the hospital (starting Monday morning). Up until now she said she’d be fine. That evening she said, “If I still feel this bad tomorrow morning, I’ll go.”
At this point I should note my mom didn’t want to go to the hospital. Four months prior, my dad got fired from his job. Anyway, he was unemployed for a couple of months and we lost health insurance. He’d just recently found a new job and the insurance forms were being processed. Meaning medical care of anytime was an absolute last resort for the time.
Anyway, Tuesday night (around 1 a.m.) I was headed off to bed. I went to check on mom in the living room. It was a sobering sight. Sh was knelling of sorts to the couch. Her head was plopped on the couch, knees on the ground. Her nightgown was snagged above her butt, which was wedged on the coffee table. I asked her thrice was she alright. Twice she said yeah, the third was an admonishment to go to bed.
At that point, I seriously considered calling 911! But I obeyed her, and went to bed. She was too sick for me to anger her.
At 5a.m. Wednesday morning, Saint Patrick’s Day, I wake up an get dressed. Then I walk into the living room. Head on couch, gown over butt, butt on coffee table. Exactly as was four hours ago. I scream her name, three times. Each louder than before. I run to my father’s room and say, “She won’t wake up!” Dad rushes out and gets by her. Now I call 911!
Too late.
She died.
So now I can’t sleep. Busy think about her.