Momma

I finished my high school career, for those of you who don't know, a little earlier than usually required. I spent a year at a private school and when it closed the public school system said it wouldn't count. I chose then to just speed the process up. I had some living to do after all, so I went to the University of Texas, in Austin, and took a GED test. I passed and just like that I didn't need high school anymore. If anyone asks me where I graduated, I can tell them U.T. with a straight face.

Not long enough after that I went down to the local National Guard camp there in Austin and joined up. After spending a weekend with a bunch of college girls who were earning their way though Texas, more or less the honest way, I decided I had to be a medic. That's another story and a really good one.

The summer after that I went to basic training. A couple of months after that I was a soldier. A few months after that I was a soldier medic. 91A, combat medic. During that time of training my mother decided to move from Austin and head out to east Texas. I still have not forgiven that. She moved to Atlanta Texas. Heard of it? Nope, nobody has. What it meant was no more college girls. It fact, as far as my young part time military career was concerned, no more girls at all. The unit out there was a TOW guided missile combat unit. Tank killers. Men. Old men.

After a couple of months there my father called and asked if I would be willing to go to work for him, in Florida. Jobs in east Texas at the time were a little hard to get for an eighteen year old boy. I was supposed to have a job lined up in a logging outfit. I just had to wait on an unnamed man to retire. Ever wait for someone to retire? I have. I told my father that I would come to work for him. I asked when I was to start. Monday. It was Thursday. I was seeing a girl. Nothing too serious but serious enough to me anyway. I did not get a chance to talk to her. It was a little before cell phones and texting or even e-mail. In fact, at the time she was a senior at the local high school. It was a one building school, the whole school. K through 12. Later when I wrote her I would address the letter to general delivery. The postmaster knew everyone. Literally everyone. This was the late eighties. My mom moved us to the mid fifties. I was able to talk to the girl Monday afternoon. Long distance (it was how you had to call back in the old fashion days) from Florida. I saw her once more after that. The second to last time I was in east Texas.

I started working construction for dad. I still miss it. Now a few things: My mother moved around pretty much constantly. I can remember about twenty schools, seriously, there has to be one or two I can't remember. I lived with her for a couple of years and lived with dad for a couple of years, back and forth. I would also spend a summer or two working for my dad. I missed my dad when I lived with mom and missed my mom when I lived with dad. Texas and Florida. Not exactly bi-coastal but I always had two homes. Dad was pretty much stable and mom just, wasn't. I have lived in Houston, all over that big city, Austin, Round Rock (still one of my favorite places), San Antonio, East Texas as you already know, Louisiana, and then in many places in Florida. My mom often moved twice a year. Six month leases. Dad pretty much stayed in one place after a short while. He then moved into Mount Dora and stayed there for years.

I was working for dad full time. It wasn't too bad after I turned eighteen. I paid rent, went to work, and that was the end of the early Saturday morning yard work days. Life was actually pretty good, though because youth is wasted on the young, I didn't know it. Oh yeah I may add that just before that time, before my brother went off to the Navy, there were up to seven teenagers living in my dad's house. It would take a chapter or two to explain the whole thing but when my father decided to marry again, he married a woman with four children. I'm sure you can do the math but he had three boys. I guess he wanted girls because she had three of them. What I'm trying to say is that things around that house could get...stressed. I really don't know how they survived it. I don't know how we survived it.

I should mention that I also have a half-brother from mom. Mike. He would sometimes spend a few weeks there too.

The very first Saturday morning after I was eighteen and payed the rent was a little strange for me. See, most Saturday morning began with being woke up and sent outside to work, then in the house to clean. Every Saturday. All day. Except on that day I was not woke up. I slept in a little. When I woke up, eventually, I was a little confused. I looked out the window and saw everyone else out there doing yard work. I heard the complaints "Why isn't TC out here working too?" I then heard my father say, "TC is eighteen, he has a job and he pays rent. He can do what ever he wants now." Really? Turns out he was right, so I went back to sleep. About the time the yard was done and the house cleaning began I was showered and fed and so the crap talking began. They started it.

I spoke with my mother pretty often, again the old timey way, long distance phone calls. They used to have telephones that were stuck to the wall by a kinda coiled up cord. It was pretty expensive so the conversations were usually brief.

She called one day to let me know she had to go to the hospital and in the morning they were going to give her a heart cath. That's when the inject a dye into your veins and look for clogged vessels and other potential problems. It's a very common procedure. She told me she was scared and wanted me to fly to Texas to be with her. I reminded her that it was a simple process and there was nothing to be afraid of. I said I couldn't go to Texas, you know, THAT night. She said she knew that and it was ok. We agreed to talk the next day after she knew more.

Dad woke me up very early the next morning and told me she passed away during the night. Had to be the hardest thing he ever told me. Had to be.

Later that day Dad and I left to go bury my Momma. It was a twenty hour drive back in the 55 mph days. We talked the whole time. I learned more about life during that road trip than any other twenty hours ever.

She died on February 12. We arrived at her apartment and began dealing with family and such. I had to call my older brother Tony who was a sailor on the USS Carl Vinson. That's an aircraft carrier. It is not easy getting a hold of a guy on an aircraft carrier even when it's in port. On the west coast. San Diego, if I remember right. Telling him was one of the hardest things I have ever done. That's how I know how hard it had to be for Dad to tell me. I was just a boy. I also spoke with my two younger brothers, Mike and Trace, both at my grandmother's house and alone. I was asked not to tell them because there was nobody there for them right now. I don't know who was on the way to my grandmother's home, that task fell on them. They asked what was wrong but I could not tell them. It was a difficult day.

I had already cried for my momma. I probably wept until I was dry. Things settled down a bit as they do after awhile and we looked around momma's apartment trying to settle affairs and prepare for more people. I found her mail box key and went to check her mail. It was now the thirteenth of February. I opened the mailbox and found the valentine's day card I sent my momma. Sitting in the mail box. Turns out I wasn't dry. I sat on the curb in broad day light and sobbed for the loss of my momma.

She was buried on the fourteenth. Valentine's Day. I was eighteen. Tony was twenty three, Trace was sixteen, I think Mike was only twelve. Tony wore his Navy Dress uniform. I wore my Army dress uniform. Mike wailed the whole time.

I saw the girl there. I saw everyone there. It was a good turn out. I was proud that so many people knew my momma.

I have never returned to the grave site. There is no need. She's not there.

Trace stayed with a family there. Then, strangely, after dropping out for awhile he graduated high school from Atlanta high. I think he was twenty one when he graduated. Dad, Lynda, and I were there to see it. That was the last time I was in east Texas. It is nice country. Sometimes I think about it. Farms and pine trees. There was a state road sign there that said,"This is not Hwy 59". I wasn't there long but sometimes I miss it. Small town Texas. When you meet some one they ask what church do you go to.

They say time heals all wounds and they are right. Time does heal. We can and do move on. Scars remain and though I don't think of my momma very often anymore, I still on occasion miss her. Sometimes I need her too.

She passed away when she was forty-two. I am now forty-three and my kids are about the same age as we were when we had to bury our momma. I look at them and see children. Young children. How could they possibly get through such a thing? How did we? Maybe we never really did. I went to a therapist once or twice to try to help with my marriage. Turns out I was a bit angry with her for leaving us. I know it wasn't up to her but still. I have since forgiven her.

My oldest daughter is a senior now. She had a rough day today at a swim meet when she realized she just wasn't getting better at the sport and she's been giving it everything she has. I told her she swam because she loved to and that was good enough. That life was full of ways to be disappointed if you let it. I told her she was lucky to find something she loved and that is good enough. I would like to know what momma would think of that. But she's not here anymore.

None of my children ever met her. She died too young. We talk about her sometimes though. I'm sure momma would be proud of her grandchildren. I know I am. They don't know it but I sometimes see momma in them, in small ways nobody else would see.

They won't remember her. Who will after I'm gone? Who will after her children are gone? Who will remember us after one or two generations pass? We are here temporarily. Then we are gone. Never leaving a mark. Not a real mark. A piece of granite in east Texas does not tell us about a life. A piece of granite in east Texas doesn't even really tell us about a death. It tells us simply someone used to exist. That is all. That's is all we have. Is that all the living need? The dead need nothing at all. Those markers are there for the living. Write about those that have passed. Write about them. Tell us about their lives and their deaths. Tell me about them. I will read it.

Perhaps soon I will tell you about my brother Sean. He's not here anymore either. He too died young.