It was my mom.
I was in her driveway.
I had agreed to take her to the hospital today.
At 7am.
It was 6am.
I had left the bar around 3am and pulled into the driveway at 4am.
I didn't want to wake her up.
So I just slept in the back of the van.
"Okay," I waved.
While I pushed myself up into a new strange day I heard my mom talking to some people.
She was telling one of them to stop filming her with their camera.
I wobbly surfaced from the van.
A group of preteen girls were standing at the end of our dead end street.
I squinted in their direction and headed inside.
"You know if a policeman saw you, you'd be arrested for vagrancy," she scolded.
"I didn't want to wake you up."
My mom's throat was having a little surgery.
Without looking, she handed me a succession of papers.
Insurance forms, notarized legal documents, her will.
"Mom, isn't this a routine procedure?"
She kept going.
She seemed very excited for me.
I would get both the house and the car.
Her voice hopped.
"It only has 38,000 miles on it!"
She continued handing me papers.
Her morbidness was going to make us late.
"Mom, we gotta go."
It was a grey morning.
We were both crabby.
My mom drove us to the hospital like a maniac.
Everyone was her enemy.
Including me it seemed.
"Are you nervous about the operation?"
"No."
Well, I don't know then.
The operation went without incident.
The goofy gas seemed to mellow out my mom.
For as long as goofy gas lasts.
Over lunch we talked.
She mentioned postponing her train trip out west.
"Mom, you've been talking about this trip for years. Why don't you just do it?"
"BECAUSE I HAVE ALL THESE HOSPITAL BILLS!!"
"MOM, YOU'RE HEALTHY!!"
I told her I wish she would stop fixating on death and focus on living.
She keeps talking about how she's going to die soon.
She's not.
She needs to live.
I wish I could convey this to her without it becoming a fucking argument.
Verdict: Loss
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