4 P.M. in the afternoon my phone rings. It was my older sister. My older sister calling in the middle of the day was never a good sign. It was pretty much always bad news. “Hello Jessica,” I answered. “Hi Gregory,” Jessica replied. “We need to talk about Mom,” she continued. Immediately my entire heart sank and a chill came over my entire body. I knew this was bad. My mother had broke her hip a year earlier, and even though my younger brother, Johnathan, and my older sister Josette lived with her Jessica and I were always the decision makers. The last hour of work dragged on as I was not looking forward to my family meeting at my mothers home. Driving home I tried to let me thought float to other less serious matters as I took a few hits of some weed I picked up the day before. It worked it’s usual magic numbing my mind. Sooner than I liked I arrived in the driveway. Everyone’s car was here. I took a few minutes in my car to gather my thoughts. Walking to the door I felt a sick hopeless feeling overcome me, but I pushed that down deep inside as I walked through the door. “Hi mom,” I said and I gave her a kiss hello. She was sitting on the center couch. “How you feeling mom,” I asked. For the first time in my life my mother admitted she wasn’t well. I didn’t even wait for any discussion. Immediately we all new, she had to go to the hospital. I hadn’t been around much for the past few months except for the occaisional weekend visit. 10 months ago my mother had broke her hip on my birthday. This event was also preceded by an afternoon call from my older sister Jessica. That is an another horrible day burned into my memory. I still remember walking in to her house that day, just like this day there she sat in pain, could hardly move. Except for that day we had to call 911 to get her to the hospital. The sadness of the moment almost made it surreal, there I stood standing watching two paramedics carry my mother out on a gurney. It was the eve of my 34th birthday, but that was the last thing on my mind. We checked into the hospital around 8 P.M. It was a busy Friday night in the E.R. so we spent most of the night in the hallway. It took me over an hour of my complaining to get her morphine for her pain. My sister Jessica was with us at first, but she left around 1 A.M. We didn’t see a doctor till about 3 A.M. He quickly diagnosed the situation as a broken hip. That night we spent 7 hours in that hallway surrounded by heart attack victim, car crash victims, feverish infants, and one gun shot victim. The latter part was an blur, but I do remember watching the sunrise out of her room window. So based on the time of year it must have been just after 6 A.M. Exhausted I knew I had to leave soon but I waited till my mother’s her next round of morphine knowing that she would at lest sleep for the next 45 minutes. Before she drifted into her drug induced sleep I kissed her goodbye and told her Jessica would be in the check on her in a few hours. As I walked out, “She said happy birthday son.” I joked, “It’s been 34 years since we last spent the night in this hospital together.” I drove home numb and emotionally drained. Marie was still sleeping when crawled into bed. Without a word I collapsed into a dead sleep. That morning I had a dream that haunted me my entire life. It was a women draped in shadowed. Her hair dark and silk, full lips and dark eyes. She has several tattoos but any real detail is a blur. What is most pronounced is a warm compassionate glow that surrounds her. It’s always the same. There I am looking up at her spinning in space above me, filling my skies. After I wake from this dream I’m always sad. Sad because I never thought she existed, except this morning. Still exhausted having only a few hours I jump out of bed with electrified intent and purpose. “She is real,” I tell myself silently. I love these divine moments of clarity. You might think I’m crazy, but I always loved. I loved her before she step out of my dreams, and now that she’s real…lets just say the beating of her heart is all that I hear.The night Marie and I had a small cake to celebrate my birthday but there weren’t many reasons to celebrate that night.

Monday I returned to work since we were still waiting for my mother’s hip surgery to be scheduled. My mind wasn’t on work, but considering the situation I thought I’d conserve my days off. I wasn’t looking forward to my conversation with Dyanne, my miserable boss. I’ve seen her talk shit about a fellow worker for missing time off from work for a family illness, so I knew not to expect much compassion other than that she was taught in her online HR training course. We had a team meeting that morning, just me and team tampon. I loved our team meetings. Dyanne’s leadership style always reminded me of the queen from Alice in Wonderland. That meeting we were discussing new projects coming down the pipe. Of course all the choice projects were given to her two favorite pets. Sarene her favorite, the real work horse of the team, always was assigned to the most challenging projects. Second in the chain was, Priscila, she was the youngest of the team but Dyanne had a strange form of respect for her. Maybe she saw a familiar sensibility…the hatred of all things loving and fair, or maybe it was the hatred of all things with a penis.