I'm lazy today...here's a Repost from May

Song of the Moment

I can still smell the interior of the Oldsmobile Toronado as the wife and I drove down the slightly sloping dirt road to the cemetary, followed by my sisters van and my brothers economy car. It smelt of pine and misery.
I was and still am a big Alice Cooper fan and that Summer I discovered that he had done albums AFTER the band had broken up and BEFORE Trash and Hey Stoopid came out. I ordered "Goes To Hell" first (straight from Germany) and listened to it religiously on the Olds' tape deck as I drove back and forth from Ch'town to Morell everyday.
That Spring, Mom got sick and had to be admitted to Outpatients. The cancer she had been fighting for almost 5 years was getting worse. They ended up taking both of her breasts and she was miserable because of it. I offered her to stay with the wife and I out in Morell, because she was from out that way and so she wouldn't have to stay alone at her apartment in town.
She lived with us for a month that can only be described as "dream-like". She was happy and smiling and doing things. The family came to visit often and brought tea for her or just came to visit. I thought everything was great.
Then, one night, I heard her crying as I came home late from work. I seen her in the spare room, smiling so big with tears running down her face. She was gasping and holding her side painfully. "I can't stay with you anymore, Hughie", she said and started to cry harder. I gave her a hug and sat there for the longest time.
We drove her back to the hospital the next day. The cancer had, once again, progressed and it was only a matter of time before she was gone. I can remember taking Stephen Kings "The Stand" into the hospital many an afternoon, and reading it as she slept in the cage-like bed.
She would sometimes wake up, in a drug-induced stupor, and think I was Dad and ask if I took off my boots...I learned to answer "Yes I did" and let her get the rest she needed.
It was an early tuesday morning that my sister Charlotte called me at home and said "Come now, she isn't going to last much longer"...I rushed out the door with the wife and sped like hell to the hospital. The tape deck came on automatically and played "Goes To Hell" for us.
When we got there, my sister looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said "oh my god hughie...its too late...its too late.." She kept saying that, as my brothers and sisters looked confusingly about the room, not knowing what they were seeing. David kept saying "what do we do now" for a minute or two and left, ultimately to break down in the hallway on his knees.
Mom's face was so content and tranquil, like she was just sleeping. I remembered then what she would look like as I would wake her up on Saturday mornings so we could watch cartoons and go to the store for a "comic book surprise". I remembered then what her face looked like when she sat in the front row of my high school gymnasium and watched me accept my diploma.

I never cried until the wake. I wasn't alive for those 2 days previous. I would do things and not know why I did them, always asking "what am I doing?" When my Dad walked up to the coffin and bowed his head, I only seen the tear in his eyes, the same eyes that hadn't set sight on Mom for almost 20 years. I saw that he still cared for her. I saw that he regretted not being there. I fell to the floor and stopped breathing. My sister Anne says there were tears in my eyes and David said he *knew* it was coming but couldn't and wouldn't stop it, it had to happen. I had my first *nervous breakdown*....

I drove the Olds to the country cemetary close to where the house I was born in is. Nothing was said in the car, only Mr Cooper was talking, asking me to wake him gently if I could.






Ciao