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I remember desperately hoping if I could hurt my outside, the pain inside might alleviate. It didn’t work. It doesn’t work. It never works.
May 7, 2018
Watching a movie. The killer takes victims with terminal illnesses. He says that after, those left behind are relieved. They think maybe it is better this way, that those murdered were spared the suffering. That is what so many people said when my father died. That he was spared the suffering. He was supposed to lose his leg and live on. Instead, he passed.
I had come home from college just that day. I remember getting the call in the middle of the night from the doctor. “You’d better come on down here. Your father is not doing well.” I was sleeping with mom. I woke her up. She was confused and disoriented, like she always is when she is woken.
We drove to the hospital. She drove, she insisted on it. I remember she stopped at the red light on 145th. There were no cars. It was dark and silent. I told her to go through the red light but she refused. I’ve often wondered why. Is it that she was trying to get a hold of what was happening? Taking that extra time to process? Or was it because she was so conditioned to following the rules that she couldn’t fathom breaking them?
