When the phone rings in my college dorm, sometime after dawn, it’s a piercing sound like a hot kettle. Outside my window, I see a sugar sky, the view is grainy cloudy-white. My Mother’s crying on the line. I can’t make out the words until I hear “accident,” and “in the river.” I flinch then and go numb. I know it’s about my sister.
They say she jumped from a swing and never came back up until they pulled her from the water. Now, she’s lying in a grey room hooked up to those damn machines. The last time we spoke I didn’t tell her that her zest for life always made me look closer at the bigger picture.I didn’t tell her she gave me hope. We’re only a little over a year apart, but she guided me. My world was always brighter. Our mother’s feeble, fragile, unstable with her main purpose being, “find a man who fills the holes.”
Mostly, Mom’s in her bathrobe waiting for her government check. I watch the clouds roll across the sky with ease. Still, there is no sun or warmth on this day. There is no magic trick that can erase all those holes, but I R-I-S-E.. I move from room to room to room until I am ready to drive those winding roads that will finally lead me back home.
They say she jumped from a swing and never came back up until they pulled her from the water. Now, she’s lying in a grey room hooked up to those damn machines. The last time we spoke I didn’t tell her that her zest for life always made me look closer at the bigger picture.I didn’t tell her she gave me hope. We’re only a little over a year apart, but she guided me. My world was always brighter. Our mother’s feeble, fragile, unstable with her main purpose being, “find a man who fills the holes.”
Mostly, Mom’s in her bathrobe waiting for her government check. I watch the clouds roll across the sky with ease. Still, there is no sun or warmth on this day. There is no magic trick that can erase all those holes, but I R-I-S-E.. I move from room to room to room until I am ready to drive those winding roads that will finally lead me back home.
