Mother

This ones a little tough to read I've been told. You've been warned.

Mother

I sit and stare into the gaunt reflection of the man I have become. My face begs for color. My eyes look desperately for hope. Dreams do not disappear all at once I have come to realize. They slowly disappear, on the edge of your conscience, forever just out of your reach. Teasing you. Urging you to let go of whatever it is holding you back. Until finally, you stop and try to remember what your dream was. With one last tear it slips away and you return to the life of monotony you had desperately tried to escape. That's what I had told myself.

I was not about to let my dream slip away.

I had started with such promise. I had written a screenplay at the age of 20 that I sold for twenty-thousand dollars to a slick producer named Gallant. Gallant told me I was going places. Destined for fame and fortune. I moved to LA and spent my early twenties writing, partying, and becoming “the next big thing.” I stepped on anything or anyone who got in my way. I spat on those who would not or could not appease me. Women arrived and left quickly. None deterring my lust or hunger for fame and fortune.

Just before my 28^th birthday my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I packed my belongings and moved back to my hometown. I traded the lights for the dust. The future for the past. I believed, in fact, I was going will my visit to be a short one. I would pay for the best treatment in the world, shake a few hands, kiss a few cheeks of relatives I had ran from and get back to my life. I had left this god-awful world behind and wasn’t about to spend hours shooting the shit with people I hated.

She had driven me away all those years ago. I couldn't stand her self righteous bullshit. I couldn't handle her good Baptist friends. Her weekly visits from the Pastor, who never hesistated to tell me of the hell that awaited me. Her almost nightly chastisements about things she had heard. I hated her and I had told her so. After my dad died I left. With an unquenchable hate, I left.

My first visit to see my mother ripped out whatever was left of my soul. She had lost forty pounds, bald and barely moving. I had to grab a table to keep from falling. I fought the urge to vomit. I had to step outside to calm myself. The next conversation propelled me to for the first and last time in my life consider suicide. Sometimes I often wonder if I should have ended it right then and there. At least then my mother wouldn’t have had to endure seeing her worthless son.

After a tearful hello, kneeling at her bed, I begged her to tell me why she hadn’t called me sooner. With a voice barely above a whisper she said people told her I wouldn’t have the time. With her last remaining strength she told me how thankful she was that I had come. It hit me as a man who has heard his death sentence. She thanked me. I couldn’t look at myself for weeks.

But now I stare into a mirror. I stare into a mirror as my mother’s son. I too have cancer, but only now there is no one to care for me. The love I refused to share now, in my moment of need, returns the favor. My sickly body is now a window in to my soul. God’s vengeful smile haunts me.

The footsteps of roads I have walked in my life echo in my mind. With a loud thud I hear the moment I walked away from my house, vowing never to return. A bang as a slam the door in the face of my father, the last time I laid eyes on him. The slamming of the phone on my mother. My evil now ravages my body. I traded my soul for my aspirations. My drive to succeed mercilessly swallowed my loved ones.

I struggle to rest my head. I stare at the white ceiling. The door into the infinite blackness of my hallway is open. I think I hear mom coming to tuck me in.