Soon, these drives will end…
She is staring at me, unblinking, with her right eye.
Because she is now completely blind in her left eye.
Mom suffered a stroke 2 days ago. She is lying in the ICU of Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City. The left side of her body just sits there. She cannot move her left arm or left leg. The left side of her face droops.
“Puh you..r han on my arm” she slurs. “You..r han is warm.”
I put my warm hand on her cold arm.
************
It is a warm summer evening. I am 11-years-old, hanging out with my buddy Todd Redmond. It is 9:30 pm, and the last slivers of sunset have just whispered goodnight. Todd and I were running up and down 10th Street and into McLain Rogers Park all evening long. We are free-range kids, reveling in the liberties our moms have given us. Carefree and joyous, we explore the world around us. Shirtless and barefoot, wandering wherever our legs can carry. Almost naked, wearing nothing but cut-off jeans. The only rule is that we have to be home when the streetlights come on.
“Kelly?” Mom asks. “How many mosquito bites can a human get?” She is scraping dozens of bumps on my legs, arms, and torso, to get the heads off so she can treat them. Once the tiny bulges are open, she swabs them with a cottonball of hydrogen peroxide.
“I don’t think they are mosquito bites, Mom. I think they’re chiggers. We were hiding from cars in the grass.”
Mom was never too busy to take care of me, even if it meant patiently scratching open a hundred chigger bites and treating them with antiseptic and calamine lotion.
************
Mom’s head is slumped forward onto her chest. She is restless. Her right arm is twitching. When it stops, her right leg starts.
“Son?”
“Yes Mom?”
“Plea..se moo my arm.”
I move her arm a little.
“Thank”
“You’re welcome, Mom.”
Mom is fidgety. Her brain keeps telling her left arm to move, but it won’t. Neither will her leg. She can barely move her right arm and leg. She doesn’t have the strength to sit up or lift her head.
I ask her questions. She can still reason, and she answers almost all of my questions about the past 70 years. Her only blurry memories are from the last 5 years.
************
“YEEEAAA KELLY!!!! THAT A BOY!!!”
I am 17-years-old. I am playing football for the mighty Red Tornadoes. Tonight, we are battling the Hobart Bearcats at home. I just caught a pass for a first down.
When I am on the field, playing an opponent, I do not hear anything but the referee whistles and the quarterback’s signals. Everything else is blocked out. I cannot hear the band playing, or the cheerleaders cheering, or the people in the stands yelling.
Except Mom. I can hear Mom. I would know that voice anywhere.
Two plays later, after hearing Mom above the crowd, I would blow my knee out. All four ligaments, plus cartilage, plus meniscus. Mom spends the next 8 weeks tending to me and praying for me. All my dreams died when my knee collapsed. She knows that. But Mom will always be there when I need her.
************
I look at Mom. She is helpless, trapped in her own body, unable to command it. I can barely calm myself, because I can’t stand the thought of being unable to move. Mom’s brain is active, trying to keep itself busy, but there is nothing for it to do. No TV to watch. No people to see. No books to read. No car to drive.
I joke that I was born with a steering wheel in my hand. I need to move. To drive. Mom is like me, or I guess I am like Mom. We were both born to drive, born to move.
I knew when she went into assisted living that she wouldn’t last long. She quit moving, quit reading, quit doing anything but mindlessly watching ‘NCIS’ for 8 hours a day, over and over.
Since March of last year, no one was allowed in to see her or hug her. 15 months of captivity, of almost solitary confinement. I watched her deteriorate, helpless to do anything, except to try and be there.
Last Tuesday, I drove up to Clinton to see Mom. It was exactly the 20th time for me to drive the 600-mile roundtrip since the lockdowns began.
Friday, she had a stroke.
Very soon, I will make those 600-mile roundtrips no more.
“Mom?”
“Yes, son?”
“You know I love you, right?”
“Yes I know.”
…
“Mom?”
“Yes son?”
“I am here. Right here.”
“I know, son. It is almost over. Soon, I will be free.”
******______******
I know you will Mom…
But I will miss the drive without you…
