MIRACLE<= o:p>
By Adam Lov= ingood
Copyright 2= 003
I sat in the corner of the = room just a few feet from her bed trying to ignore the ever-present smell of uri= ne. The already small room always felt smaller the longer I stayed. I thought a= bout Ma being in that room most of her day, every day. The dingy brownish-yellow wall paper surrounded us unevenly with gold filigree and water marks from t= he flood of ‘91. Suddenly, I needed a deep, lung-full of air despite the odor.
“Where do I begin? I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t even try to tell this story. D= addy Bob always says that I’m so awful at telling stories. He says that I = stop and start and forget details and then go back and put them in when it’= ;s too late and then lose my place and sometimes have to begin anew. I guess I just get so excited about telling the story that my desire to tell it overwhelms my ability.”
“Don’t listen t= o Daddy Bob. You’re a fine story teller.” Daddy Bob was one of the orderlies and the oldest member of the staff. No one knew his exact age, and neither could anyone remember a time when he wasn’t on staff.
“I wish I could have = Willit tell the story. He’s such an engaging st= ory teller. He’ll have you rapt after the first sentence. I don’t k= now what it is that makes some people so interesting in the way they say things, and you just want to hear everything they have to say and for them to never stop. But Willit ain’= ;t here. He ain’t been here for a while. Loo= ks like you’re stuck with me.”
As she spoke, I pictured Ma surrounded by azaleas the way she was the first day I saw her pruning the bushes in front of the building she owned on St. Charles Street. The four-u= nit brick building with a courtyard where I sought to rent my first apartment a= fter moving to Atlanta for a fresh start. My first apartment= where I would live alone. That was fifteen years ago. On that perfect April day with her still-vibrant red hair tied back with a yellow ribbon and the white sun dress she wore adorned with blazing blue flowers, it was difficul= t to distinguish Ma’s figure from the rainbow palette of spring azaleas. S= he had the warmest, most welcoming smile I had ever seen. I knew I was home.
“I’ll try to ke= ep it all together. The way it happened, let me think, was all at once though. I = know it was. That I remember clear as mountain water. The way she looked that day when she stood in the doorway with her sheer pink nightgown all twisted aro= und her legs because she’d been running down the hall to tell me. A piece= of lace from the hem had come lose and was hanging down almost to her feet with one foot caught in the loop. I almost called to her to not move no more. I almost said, ‘“Don’t you run no more. You don’t wan= t to trip on that lace. Hand me that and I’ll sew it up.”’ But= I didn’t say it because I could see right away that she wasn’t go= ing to run no more. Wasn’t no need to.”<= /p>
One of the nurses paused ou= tside Ma’s door and glanced in to give us both an unsmiling nod, whether of approval or disapproval was anyone’s guess. I had seen that particular nurse before sitting in the window of a downtown café. She looked li= ke one of those white people who had traveled extensively in Japan with one wo= ol sweater and one pair of soft-sided go-anywhere shoes. Her hair was dirty-bl= ond and wavy and wandered about her head only slightly disciplined by her regulation cap. Her blue eyes always looked past me as if she had noticed something familiar in my shadow.
Seeing the unchanging, unco= ncerned manner of the staff on each visit, I wished I could take Ma to live with me. But my small one-bedroom apartment and her nearly constant need for care didn’t allow for such an arrangement. I felt guilty about the increasingly infrequent visits, but it was so hard for me to look at her sometimes. She seemed to be fading away from herself, slowly extracting from the physical shell as if slipping out of a wetsuit. Her once red hair now an ageing calico mix framing a face crevassed from too much pain at too young = an age.
“She stood there in t= he doorway with the plug-in nightlight in the hallway making her shine all aro= und her edges. All light and shadow. I couldn’= t see here face and yet I knew that she was smiling at me. I just knew the way you just know stuff sometimes. She stood in the doorway for a long time. A real long time. Yeah.”
Ma fell silent for a while = to look out the window a few feet from her bedside. A crepe myrtle branch slowly sw= ayed in the breeze caressing the thin window pane. Ma watched the branch as if i= n a trance. “What happened next, Ma.” I = said bringing her back to her tale.
“I love crepe myrtles= ,” Ma exclaimed still looking out the window. “I don’t know why I = love ‘em though. Ain̵= 7;t it strange the way we love things and don’t know = why.”
“Yeah, it is.”<= /p>
She was quiet again. “= ;What happened next, Ma? What happened while Miss Edith was standing in your doorway?”
“Well, let me see. Sh= e just stood there for a long while, and I didn’t know what to say or do. Th= en, as my eyes adjusted a bit more to the dark, I saw something in her left han= d. She was left-handed, you know. So finally I said, ‘Edith, what’s that you have there in your hand.’ But you know what, she didn’t say nothing. She just lifted her hand like she w= anted to show me. Like Benny used to do when he was real little before he learned= the names of everything. He would raise whatever it = was up to me and I would tell him what to call it. That’s the way she did th= at night.”
I had forgotten about Benny, Ma’s son. I’d never actually met him. I only knew him from Ma’s references. When Ma and I first met, I couldn’t recall ever having a conversation with her in which she didn’t mention him at lea= st once. Then over the years, Benny visited conversations less often. Hearing = his name again was startling like seeing someone you didn’t expect to see= .
“Naturally, I didn=
217;t
think she needed me to tell her what to call it. It was a strange sight.
I didn’t want her to = stop her story. “I know what you mean though, Ma, about things being strange a= nd comforting. If you haven’t felt comforted for a long time, you forget what it feels like and then it feels strange. Is that what you mean?”=
Looking at me, her eyes bri= ghtened and her embarrassment subsided, “Why, yes. That’s it. That̵= 7;s the way it was. Edith had been sick for so long. So very long. You lose hope, you know. You’re certain that it’s = all over. It’s only a matter of waiting until the end. There ain’t no comfort in = that, let me tell you. But that night, watching her standing in my bedroom doorwa= y, I knew that something had happened. Something good. Even before I knew what it was.”
“And what was it, Ma?= ”
“You know the doctors= told her that she didn’t have much time left. She was losing her sight, wh= ich was so hard on her because she loved to read so. She would read anything. I think she would’ve read the phone directory if that’d been all = that was around. Such a tragedy when you think you won’t be doing something you love like that.”
“When did she die?= 221;
“Well, that’s i= t. She didn’t die. Well, she did directly but not for many years after that.= And she didn’t need to take her insulin no more. That’s what she ha= d in her hand, her needles. She was telling me to throw away all her needles bec= ause she wouldn’t need them ever again. And she didn’t. She said she= was healed. And you couldn’t tell it by me that she wasn’t. I don’t know that I completely believed it then, but I think I do now. = Now I believe it.” Ma looked at me as her eyes sparkled, and I noticed th= at she looked more alert and aware than I had seen her in years.
Watching her there, I steel= ed myself for the part I always dreaded, “Ma, I’m really sorry, bu= t I need to get back home. Thank you for the story though. You are a wonderful story teller and don’t let anyone tell you anything different.”=
Squeezing her hand tightly = one more time, I smiled before kissing her goodbye. As I leaned over to kiss her forehead, the red tie I was wearing brushed her right arm. With her left ha= nd she touched the silky fabric, “I’m glad you wore my favorite tie today. I love that red on you, and it brightens up the room so.”
I didn’t want to tell= her that I hadn’t even thought about it when I had dressed that morning. I didn’t want to admit that it was a chance occurrence resulting from a hasty decision and instead I merely nodded, “I’ll see you soon, Ma.”
“You know, honey, one= night I’ll be standing in your bedroom doorway. I just know it. I know I wi= ll. I feel it. Knowing that keeps me going. I won’t need to be here no mo= re. We can be together again just like we used to.”
I paused, not knowing what = to say. “That would be wonderful. You know I would really like that. Now you = get some rest.”
She smiled and as if follow= ing my order she moved down in the bed and closed her eyes. I brushed her hair asi= de and kissed her forehead before exiting the room quietly and heading for the waiting elevator. Passing the nurses’ station, I heard laughter and o= ne nurse’s comment, “If I have to listen to one more story from th= at old woman, I’m gonna scream bloody murder.” Pushing the lobby button, the doors closed and I was alone again. &= nbsp;