Things I Do For Love

Dumb things I do for love.

I saw her ad in the newsletter and responded with an email.

I said I wanted to meet, sort of look her over, but I already knew.

I told a friend and he tried to talk me out of moving on her.

He said she wasn't worth it, that I was already set, but I wouldn't listen.

Who can listen when love's involved?

Who can stop themselves when the promise of bliss is just a moment away?

Beretta 686 White Onyx, 28 Gauge.

In the worst of times, love is what we need, even if we can't afford it.

And so I took her home.

I know what's good for us.

I Have Pants On Too

If you spend your time with the same type of folks I do, and your Slim Jim can't be split open with your teeth, or you can't open the infernal heat-sealed packet your earplugs are in, and you happen to ask, "Got a knife?" everyone within earshot will start digging in their pockets to get you a blade. Thrust upon you will be hands filled with Gerbers, Bucks, and maybe an old school Schrade--all eager to help--along with the standard, "Got my pants on?"

That's just the way it is. I got a few friends, but not many, who carry "tactical" knives for gutting the folks that try to do them harm. They carry a whole different kind of blade. Mean and nasty things I've never heard of, things that you could breast out a turkey or goose with, but probably ain't much good opening a can of beans when you leave your P-38 at home.


My favorite is the "Tanto bladed weapon" that guys brag on. I ain't got one, but every time I hear the word I think of the Lone Ranger's sidekick and the word "Tonto" ("silly" in Castellano) which is what any fetish is to me, even when the lust involves "tactical weapons for close quarters combat". What's the old adage? Never bring your knife to a gunfight?


Sure sure, the devotees will tell you, "I can close twenty-one feet with a knife and slit your throat in half a second!" And they might be right, or not. It might be, that if I see you standing there with a knife in your hand seven yards away, I might just go on and produce a handgun on the off chance that you actually do want to slit my throat--you wouldn't be the first person to think of it I reckon.


Another thing to remember about good old boys and their knives is this: if you're handed an open folding-knife, you had best return it the same way--for reasons I'm not sure of. A friendly dressing down by a buddy set me straight on that. It would be like bumming someone's last cigarette I suppose. It just isn't done, even though I was taught by my quasi-yankee (from Missouri) dad that safety is smart, and folders get closed before changing hands, and fixed-blades get handed back handle first.


Me, I can't keep a knife. Knives are one of the small things that the Universe will not let me own for more than six months. And all the knives I buy (or "borrow" from Brian) are hunting knives--from the diminutive "butthole knife" to the whopper chopper camp knife--or fishing knives which are handy for filleting the meat right off of the annoying rest of the fish.


The most likely to disappear are the little folders with the clip on the side for attaching to the inside of your pocket making the knife a cinch to gall the view screen of your phone into a scarred and unusable wreck...or the back of your hand as you reach for change. My Glock never cut my hand, never even tried, though I carry it elsewhere than my pocket--somewhere not quite in my underwear, but not quite inside a holster either.


Well I didn't mean to digress and start poking fun at knife-toting folks, I just had a thought. The times I've needed a knife and had to get one from someone else makes the phrase, "I've always relied on the kindness of strangers," a way of life for me. But maybe that's part of the "why" I hang out with the folks I do. If I can't get that Brownell's box open, I know someone who can...and if "someone who can" needs some crown molding run or needs a half-inch drill with a sixteen inch long, 3/4" auger bit, I'm their boy.


In the meantime, I'll keep buying the crappy new Chinese Schrades because they remind me of the knives I cut my teeth on as a young man. And I'll keep looking for old, used American-made hunting knives because back in the day, they made them with some magical fancy steel that would actually hold an edge in the face of hide and hair that doesn't seem to exist nowadays. And when they get gone, I'll fret until someone helps me out.

The Chinese attempt to reproduce the Old Timer from my youth that was lost in a woods.

Cheating Death (Or Why Pools Are So Fricking Dangerous)

A quick word on cheating death:


As a parent, now, I've come to the realization that my sole purpose for being here is to protect the offspring I helped create (or took to raise as my own). In the genetic sense, of course as a Male of the species, I want my DNA to keep on keeping on. And no, that's not the everlasting life Jesus promised (if I gave up all my money and/or stuffed a camel through the eye of a needle), but close enough for Mother Earth.


And now, looking back, I've realized that a few times I, or my partner in seeding the earth with frenetic and genetic splices, have actually had opportunity to literally save the kids' lives. And when that happens, I call it cheating death. I've had a few close calls myself, but only once has someone reached down and pulled me out of a catch-basin by my hair...


The boy was into T-Ball though I'm not sure why--more proof that he was adopted I reckon. After a season of games, the coach, a man who must love the game, threw a little get together at his home which featured a pool. When we arrived, we walked around the back of the house following all the child-like noises we heard and Jaime and I stepped to the side of the pool. Jaime, who's never even seen a pool, looks down and immediately steps, just steps, into the water without a moment of hesitation! Fully dressed, and *bloop*, he's gone.


For half a second--my mouth drops open--I stand in disbelief watching him go down. Being a four year old Guatemalan, there ain't many places where the pool water ain't gonna be over his head. I drop the things in my hand and drop to my knees and shove my arm into the water and reach for the boy. He's so far down, and still dropping, that all I can grab is his hair, so I do, and I pull.


I get him out and he chuckles and the rest of the time that we're all there, things are as right as rain--I doubt if anyone else even noticed the "drama" that had unfolded right under my nose--his mom did! At the time I didn't think anything of it, but now, looking back, I feel like a hero, like I snatched him from the jaws of death. The sad news is, the heroics there were cancelled out by my almost killing him years before.


That involved a belt tied around his two-year old waist and then slinging him around the room. It's all fun and games until his sneakers lost their grip on the floor and he BONKED his head on the 1970's porno-esque hearth that was featured prominently in the rental house-by-the-lake. See, back then he didn't really get my political humour (ie fart jokes and potty mouth), so I had to use slapstick to keep him laughing. And the lesson I took was no more belt slinging Jaime around unless we were outside.


So the balance was reset--I almost kill him, then years later, I snatch him back from the brink. And it remained so until I almost killed us both in 2007, but that's another story.


Now, the daughter, the first born, though younger than the boy (I still smile when me and Lisa were the only parents at Lamaze class laughing at people putting diapers on immobile, lifeless dolls. I kept saying, "You better learn how to hold him down with your leg while you unfold that diaper, Bro!") has her own tale. I brought her back from the severed garden's gate at a friend's pool as well.


Being in the water first, I was an inadvertent lure to my daughter as she tip-toed neck deep in the water towards me. What she didn't know, was that the pool, like all good backyard pools, is divided between "deep" and "shallow" ends by the slippery sloping floor. I watched as she went from placid to panic as her feet slid, dragging her with them and under water. The thing I realize, when I saw the fear in her eyes, and heard the gurgling, choking attempts at breath, is that it only takes a second to be in real trouble, even under the best of circumstances.


And I had to watch it all from about 15 feet away--the longest 15 feet of terrible walk/swim-stroking I've ever had to cover. Upon arrival, I hoisted her up and held her to me and it was over after a few coughs and snotty bubbles. Like Jaime before her, I held a tiny person that I'd taken on as such a part of my life, that to fail either of them as a father at this level would have been devastating. I've been ever so slightly touched by others' lives where there was no panicked, parental grasp to help a young child ensnared in a pool.


Our panache for water born suicide might just run in the family. I recall being a young fifth or sixth grader--okay, perhaps I don't recall all that much--wading in a giant mud puddle after a summer storm at one of my sister's swim meets. The water was mid-calf deep, so when some half-witted dumbass (the worst kind) warned me to be careful, that "the water's deep," I didn't think much of it. Had they said, "Be careful, there's an uncovered catch-basin hidden in the muddy, murky water that your about to step into." I might have heeded the warning.


As it was, I took a step, and quickly disappeared. I found out first hand what it's like to lose all orientation in the world: no time...sights...up...down...light...just dark. All that was left was fear and the sounds of the water in my ears and the cavitation of flailing arms. Until a hand wrapped itself in my hair and pulled me up and out. And not surprising, there was my dad, the man who had taken me on to raise doing what most parents only do metaphorically, but right then at that moment, he had literally saved my life.


Sure, he wouldn't hug me; he didn't want to get wet. And no, we didn't leave to get me some dry clothes; it was my sister's swim meet dammit! But he had set a precedent that sadly, my kids and I were destined to repeat.


I could go on, and I will, but only if you want me to.

Sunday, The Morning After--Heaven is a Lot Like Dixie

You know, the guy said the world was gonna end, and we all made fun of him, and we all spread the word of his foretold and impending doom just like we were supposed to...just like he and his followers wanted us to. In fact, I even saw (though I have no attribution for this) that he or his organization raised 17 million dollars. Wow, not bad for a couple of weeks work and a modest billboard investment.

So, all week we quoted Mathew something something (somewhat out of context I'd add just to be the doubting brett we all know and love) to make certain that this guy was "talking out his ass", and we all went about our business. Me and a couple of friends went fishing to pass the time until Armageddon and were happy we caught a mess of fish, then when nothing happened set about cleaning them wishing that the world had ended sooner so we'd not have had to clean so many.

And today, we're all up early making fun of the guy and his ilk because, as one so aptly put it--"So there really is a morning after..." But I still think he got what he wanted, in fact, if it weren't for us and our social networks, I betcha I'd have never heard of the guy. And, perhaps he did make millions of dollars (which causes me to think, as I often do in the shadows of others' genius, "Why didn't I think of that?!")

But even more telling, here in my own home, a little girl tried wrapping her brain around end-of-the-world thoughts--we know it's coming at some point; we've seen The Universe series (think Red Giant smokes the earth in like a gabillion years)--but here she was faced with the unlikely prospect here...NOW. I foolishly didn't think it were possible that my kid could be swayed by a kooky freak on the internet.

So a dusty Bible was cracked open, and confessions of a tentative belief system were made. Was that a tiny spark of a Christianity to come finally glowing in my daughter? And me, the cynical atheist, wanting to crush that little ember but in the end only reading the Mathew phrase as if a single "passage" would calm her worries. Of course she'd be better off knowing the world would cease to exist the second her brain dies from lack of oxygen for whatever reason...wouldn't she?

I didn't say a contrary word, in fact, I might have been proud that she was exploring the possibilities of her existence without any input from her big-mouthed father. Her first steps towards something like a comforting word from above were, to me, something of a first for her, an outward look, but I don't know. For now I'll support her if she wants to delve further into what can be a spiritual awakening for some folks without it becoming a judgmental descent into what I consider madness.

At our house, we have a name for the folks who think that a second coming of christ is even a possibility--godwads, but even my son, a scarily devout atheist is as homophobic as his macho friends without a divine reason. "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," they say, smug in their "manliness". And I battle that as best I can, and if my daughter can't believe without escaping the same "westboro baptist church" hate traps I'll fight that too. But for now, they're allowed a certain level of freedom--no one's asking to go to church, thank god!

So was what's-his-name wrong? Sure he was, but he did get some of us talking about him and the good book. He might've given a little girl a reason to explore another possibilty other than the one her dad follows, and, according to one friend, the guy made a huge, stinking pile of money! So he's the winner...

But the really Good News is the fact we're gonna have a mess of crappie for supper tonight courtesy of our good Mother Earth Whom I feel under my feet, and smell in my nose, and see in my eyes, and taste with my tongue, and hear with my 44 year old ears--and I thank Her.

This is called a double, two casts, two fish!

It's Taken Four Dogs to Raise Me.

Better to be 44 than not. It's as close as I've ever come to being the perfect age...and pretty soon, another year'll tick off and I'll have to change my tune to something like, "Better to be 45 than not. It's as close to being the perfect age..."


I used to see the guys that worked for me, twenty-somethings with new families and barely enough money to pay for them, and think, now that's the way to do it. They'll be able to throw or kick balls in the back yard until dark and take Tae Kwon Do kicks to the gut without having to gobble handfuls of Naproxen and Vicodin at bed time to calm a throbbing shoulder or neck. They'll be forty something when the kids move out, I thought, still kinda young.


But me, I had waited until I thought I was absolutely sure I could afford kids--their illnesses and their time. And I think that was better. By the time we had a couple, I was nearly ready. My wife had prepared me for a lifetime with someone who can't return things from whence they came and non-sensible arguments about butter and egg placement in our first refrigerator. But a few dogs may have taught me more about how ready I really was.


By the time we had kids, I had already figured out that maybe it isn't the end of the world that the boy liked to break everything he touched, that the girl constantly spilled everything she ate. Maybe I wouldn't yell at them when my brush disappeared, or when all the batteries  inside our various remote controls turned up missing, and the little trap door on the remotes--even some of the irreplaceable remotes disappeared.


And to think I made it to the ripe old age of 32 before I was calm, quiet and collected enough for children. Oh, I guess I still yell--I like "grandiose" gestures, but it's more for show. When I'm dead serious not much is said but a choice curse-word followed by the yank of the Wii's power cord, or the flip of a breaker thus shutting down an entire floor's electrical flow. Then I'll repeat, "Mom said it's time to eat!" or "Mom said it's time to study!" or "Mom said it's time to get up." or "Mom said it's time to clean the rat cage." I can still get things done...but no more stomping.


I know I'm more patient these days because of the simple fact that through a congenital, Mothershead "defect", there has almost always been a dog around to gauge my personal growth. I cringe at how I treated my first dog Duffer when I think back to the days in High School when, after I had put up a half a mile of fence to create a pen, I was allowed to pick out a "free" dog to call my own. Later, when I "moved out" unexpectedly before the end of high school, her life was a downward spiral that was caused by my own abject poverty--it was horrible to live and to see.


The days where I'd have to choose between gasoline (to get to work) or dog food were always towards the end of the week just before paydays. My dog who had never slept outside in her life was forced onto a chain in my new roommate's back yard. As lonely as I felt, it was Duffer who showed it, vocalized it, so that along with my isolation, I also got to enjoy some higher levels of self-loathing.


She couldn't be helped, but when I found a household that accepted dogs into the home to renters, we moved in expecting to live out our gravy days together, but it didn't last. One of us had fleas and they spread to the entire household which we shared with Jim and his horribly disfigured Himalayan cat. I honestly don't know where the scourge had come from, but we were blamed and asked to leave again. I just didn't have it in me to chain her outside again that being the one condition of letting us stay.


From there, I had to, hat in hand, go back to my parents and pass her off to them. She didn't fare much better there, but at least she was fed, and had a home. She even got to visit my college dorm one day, for an illegal bath and an unexpected run after a squirrel on the weekend-deserted campus of UNCG. The college in which I was accepted two weeks before school started in '89 because, at the whim of my father, I was deemed worthy to come back to the fold and receive his tuition money and blessing, until....


My girlfriend graduated and sadly, couldn't hang out in my dorm room all year like she had my junior year (maybe the only benefit to being an RA was the single room) and was going to get an apartment. Well of course, I invited myself along and we made plans to share a life together like 22 and 23 year olds do all the time. But pops didn't think so. In fact, suddenly, he felt like I should actually pay for the education myself from there on out--not because I was going to live in sin with the love of my life, but because I had made the statement that college life was "a gravy train with biscuit wheels" which he didn't like one bit.


So I quit.


I moved into a apartment to live in sin with the love of my life, and I settled into working residential construction though for the first time in my life, I was not hanging up my tool belt in the fall to return to school. From there I got us evicted playing music too loud--it was an old white guy who'd replaced the fun loving black folks whom we loved as they never complained about my music. And in turn, we didn't mind a young Otis coming over to hangout with the cats whenever he wanted. They had left suddenly and secretly probably days after a pretty intense stove top fire gutted their kitchen neither telling management or local firefighters!


So after sharing the shame of eviction, we found a tiny house to rent and then did something crazy. We eloped in a not-so-secret ceremony with a Justice of the Peace in coveralls doing the honours and dad actually springing for the 35 dollars owed as I'd left my checkbook at home. Luckily we had driven up to Martinsville, Virginia where getting hitched was 25 dollars cheaper than in NC. And from there, we bought a neighbor's house just down the street from the rental and I vowed to get a dog.


By now, we're a bona-fide couple, so all dogs are going to get three names and health care and as soon as I can, I go to the pound and grab a broke-eared, Basenji-Lab mix and gag when she barfs in the truck on the ride home. I was a 20 something with a dog named Mary Margaret Mothershead. She was to be a lonesome thing, so in short order we "rescued" (that's another story) a rat terrier for "Maggie" to play with and called her Melinda Kay Mothershead, our Molly.


Now, I had had the job, which blossomed into a career and budding corporation of my own, and the times in the white house were peppered with loving dogs and the first "apartment" cats and we were one big hairy family. The dogs had run of the place, slept with us off and on, and did as they pleased enjoying food scraps and finally, steady, decent health care.


I remember letting Maggie out one morning and watching helplessly as she sauntered into the road and not looking both ways was grazed by a passing car--the kind of car that really does come out of nowhere in that pre-dawn darkness that only construction workers and school teachers know. Scooped up into arms, my little 33 pound Maggie, "lifeless" and bathed in my tears, was awake and barfing in the truck before we even got to the Emergency-After Hours Vet Clinic.


A sleepy-eyed vet looked at my dog jogging around the waiting room for two seconds and said, "She's fine." I wasn't sure. "Look, her nose is bleeding, don't you want to take an x-ray?" He turned his back on us and said, "If you leave now, I won't charge you 100 bucks," and we scooted out the door. The guys at work were sympathetic to say the least--especially after I reenacted the tearful march holding my imaginary, "dead" Maggie in my arms for them to see.


The whole time with these dogs were extremely happy and gratifying for me, and I thought at last I was ready for children. Only rarely did the selfish Brett rear his head with an ugly, "Go on!" when I was eating or ready for a dog looking for a pat on the head (or snack) to leave me alone. Of course, being ready for kids is different from actually producing them, and I've mentioned how that was before now.


After a whirlwind of paperwork, and the selling of a house, the moving into then out of an apartment, and the subsequent moving into another rental house--all within six months--we were parents. And the dogs went right along with us bearing the brunt of a new indifference due solely because of our growing family. I was about to fail my dogs again. I was about to become a cowering cliche when faced with the "dilemma" of having our old children with four legs compete with a new son, and surprisingly, another baby, a girl, to come.


I can remember having to go to work one morning before dawn and letting two dogs, who'd obviously just been sprayed by a skunk, back into the house--I just had to go to run the crew. I didn't have time to stop and hose them off or dunk them in V-8. There was just never any time for anything but work and/or kids. See, Emily was born shortly thereafter, so "then there were two", sixteen months apart.  And then Maggie lunged at someone, a little boy, and though both were safely on opposite sides of a closed sliding-glass door, mothers saw, and wheels started turning.


When I came home from work and Maggie was gone, I was too tired to even put up a fight. I knew it was a conspiracy the likes of which I hadn't seen in my family since I was 13 and my very first cat was found mauled and dead in the woods by my parents who thought it wise not to tell me until I was a grown man. And, since we still had Molly, I quietly, and guiltily, accepted Maggie's fate as my own failure. There were times when I groused at the two dogs for panting on me, or begging for food, and I feel bad that I could somehow be that gruff with them verbally, but they were the ones who "took it" when I couldn't tell the baby's to "Go lie down!" or "Git!"


A few years pass and we moved into a house we vowed to not live in longer than three years. It has been our home for twelve. Naturally, Molly came with us, and slowly while we lived (and while some of us grew) there, she, and the apartment cats got older and older. And one by one they would pass until even Molly, my last chance at redemption for Duffer and Maggie, my last parental aid, was failing and needed help. She needed the kind of help they only get once and I didn't let her down.


Of course, this whole time I'm kicking Molly off the bed at night for years and years, my kids are turning into these little people--getting taller, smarter, and more vocal. They crack jokes, they use my own twisted logic against me. And like I mentioned before, they help destroy almost everything I let them come into contact with. But what's saving them? What's keeping me from eating them, yelling at them, or shooing them away when I think I'm too tired or too busy to listen to them? They're my dogs now.


Sure, it helps that the kids have brown eyes, brown and black hair like a dog, but the kids also have a dog's caring, wanting-to-please look in those eyes. So what I do now is make sure I avoid the same baleful look Duffer gave me as I left her in a lonely back yard coming from my children if I were to ignore their voices. I see the kids smile at me, approaching to beg for my last bite of a Hershey Bar or last piece of gum and I give in at last so I don't relive seeing Maggie drop her head and slink off after I had said, "Git!" And when one of the kids wants to sleep in my room, more often than not I relent, not wishing to relive seeing Molly waddle off to her corner dejected and hurt after getting the boot.


My dogs had taught me how not to parent, and showed me how things could be if only I would let myself behave like a father, and pack leader I guess. Doing right by these dogs now, though too late, I realize that there really is plenty of time for everyone, and always room for one more. Possibly making us the luckiest dog owners in the world, that old gene and a dog-less house sent me to the pound for one more chance recently. Sadly, this poor dog would only get one recycled name purloined from a cartoon monkey.


Steve has come enjoy the kind of life a wiser 44 year old can give to her. She's the dog that'll help me atone for every sin I've committed against her kind. She's as precious to me as one of two-legged kids I have, and I only have to watch her stare out the window watching for the school bus at four o'clock in the afternoon to know that she loves them as much as I do. Grab one of my kids gruffly and she'll let out a low rumble belying her smallish size.


So finally, I feel like I'm doing okay, even now knowing that there's room for improvement with the kids and the dog. As their math homework gets harder and I humbler, I tend to shrink away from them when I hear book bag zippers in the kitchen. Maybe if I had my own textbook. When I know my tubby dog needs and wants to go for a walk oh so badly, sometimes I act like I have too much to read, or write, or even, watch on TV. Steve doesn't know I don't have to watch TV to survive; she's cool like that.

But maybe best of all, since Steve's been such a joy, I know that if one dog is good, then two is bound to be better. It's been along time since I've heard eight paws charging my way through the house after the expectant, "Daddy's home!" call. And it's been a while since Steve frolicked in some grass with one of her own--even though I count myself and my family as just that.

The New 27 Day Song "Challenge"

The first one I tried had some pretty cool 'categories'. Of course there's no such thing as a favorite this or that, and some of the 'categories' seemed a tad redundant or vague or ambiguous. But it was fun for me to try to pick single songs--though I never could it seemed.

And I wasn't out to prove anything, just to share. And then I was surprised to see how interested I was in what others were posting as well. It was a real treat. Interesting to see the commonalities and the huge differences in musical tastes that others shared--and in the end, we could all thank YouTube and copyright infringing video posters for making it so easy!


1.What is your favorite movie theme song.
2.What is your favorite television show theme song.
3.What is your favorite commercial jingle?
4.What is your favorite song for driving?
5.What is your favorite spooky or scary song?
6.What is the song on the first single you bought?
7.What is the song from the first music video you ever saw?
8.What is a song you like to work out to?
9.What is your favorite instrumental song?
10.What song would you replace the National Anthem with?
11. What is a good song for New Year's Eve?
12.A song by your favorite singer turned actor, or your favorite actor turned singer?
13.What is your favorite one hit wonder?
14.What is your favorite cover song that's better than the original?
15.What is your favorite song you'd like to sing a duet with the artist(s) on stage?
16.What is your favorite song you like to sing to a pet?
17.What is a song that reminds you of home?
18.What is a song that makes you think of your Mom or Dad....or both?
19.What is a song that describes your most important relationship?
20.What is a song you love to hate, but still tap your toes when it comes on?
21.What is a song that you wish you could say but have never been bold enough?
22.What is your favorite song for making sweet sweet love to? Or just making out?
23. What is your favorite Schoolhouse Rock song?
24. What is a song you like to play while cooking a fabulous meal?
25. What is a song you heard but misunderstood the lyrics, and what did you "hear"?
26. What is a song you sing to your child? Someone else's?
27. What is a song you like that would make a great poem with the music stripped away?






And that's all I have for now. I was thinking just now though. If you're at this list, and think of another "topic", add it below in the comments section. If you're one of the seat-of-the-pantsers, then you can't see this list anyway.

Becky Mothershead 4-29-39 to 5-8-01

Happier times. L to R: John, Me, Jaime, Emily, and Mom.

I wrote the following (below in blue) on Saturday, May 8th, 2010, but it feels longer ago than that. Her death, however feels closer in time than that, as if she'd died just a couple of years ago. It is truly hard to believe she died ten years ago, when Jaime was four and Emily was two. Anyway, I thought I'd repost it here, on Mother's day, my Mother's day.


I would only add that the things I miss about mom the most are the little things she'd do for us, and I mean the littlest things like her eating the chicken wings out of a bucket of chicken from The Golden Skillet in Greensboro so us kids could have the legs. How her hands felt. How she used to "jog" but we kids could walk beside her. How she'd eat corn on the cob like a child and it'd get everywhere on her face. Or the way she never changed her hairdo...until she didn't have any.

I remember the look on her face, the smile to herself when my kids would reach out for her to hold. She'd wait for them to come to her, never grabbing them against their will even though she would have loved to. I used to think to myself, "Grab 'em, mom!" but I don't think I ever said so. I did get to school mom on how to burp an infant Emily one evening, and I'll never forget that moment.

And one of the saddest things I ever saw after mom died was four-year-old Jaime telling my dad, "Sorry Gran'ma B. died, Gran'pa John," before we all left for the funeral that morning. 

Jaime dressed for mom's funeral.

At the funeral I cried in front of everyone there, people who would have never thought it possible. I looked into the teary-eyes of my future stepmother (though of course I didn't know it at the time) and saw the sense of loss we all felt, but more meaningful somehow from someone not in our immediate family. I don't know...I have just never forgotten her look.

She was the lady, my new mom, who kissed my bruised head while I was strapped down in the hospital with my broken neck. And, of course, two weeks later she'd find out that her husband, my dad, would head down the same tortuous path as my mom.

Anyway, it's been ten years, and I still think about those regrets as often as I do the good things I like to remember. Our lives sure have changed since she left...of course, that's one of the only things we can count on.

Rebecca Sue Richards Mothershead 4-29-39 to 5-8-01

I was at work, of course, when dad called in the middle of the week, and I could hear in his voice how scared he was. I mean, he was calling me, the black sheep, the dumb ass carpenter for help and support...so it had to be bad. He couldn't even say it, so I went right over.

When I got there, it was quiet, and we sat by her bed and we both quietly cried and held mom's hands. I couldn't speak (I had that problem all the time back then) so I just sat and listened to dad tell mom it was okay if she couldn't wait any more, that it was okay if she wanted to leave just then, that he would be okay. But it wasn't quite her time.

A couple of weeks before her birthday while we sat on my couch, I had asked her what she wanted--the awkwardness of looming death making me more of a fool than ever, and she said, "I just want to be here." Dumbfounded, sitting beside her, I could only say, "Me too." I couldn't bear to hug her or tell her anything, like how scared I was, or how much I truly loved her, or anything. She was so small, thin, and frail...

I hate myself for that moment; the moment I failed my mother.

So weeks later, May 8th, we had gathered at mom and dad's house and were around the bed waiting. Not like vultures, but like a family. Of course at 10 o'clock that evening I had to go and retrieve the company work trailer before some white trash emptied it of our livelihood so I left them all there and headed to the jobsite and then home.

I hadn't been home ten minutes and the phone rang. I had missed the moment Mom slipped away because of work. I had failed again and by the time I had returned, she of course was long gone.

She had fought long and hard. She had suffered the likes of which we can only imagine. And I couldn't tell her I loved her. It wasn't until Dad died later that I realized, that if I could have one of them back, it would have to be Mom. She was the enigmatic, sometimes silent, and sometimes decidedly NOT, support system for the whole family. When she left us, we really fell apart and separated onto several different paths...

We laughed over mom's body with the hospice nurse about the nurse's story of her white friends who had adopted a little black girl but were clueless about how to take care of her hair! The trials and tribulations were just so funny at such a sad and relieving time that we all, my sister, my dad, my brother in law, and even the nurse and I just laughed...mom would have liked that and would have laughed too...

So yeah, hug your mom, your kids, your dog, whatever...TELL them what you think you cannot say. It's the oldest lament in the world to not have done so...

Mom's last Christmas with us in 2000. Her happenin' wig!

Everyone's Poopy Loo!