The Last Son

 

 

 

A while ago I was sitting down by my mom’s side.

She was bedridden due to a sickness she had had for many years.

Not a bad night.

No rain, no heat, just a day.

Well it was night and she was dying.

My father and partner were out for a break and it was my turn to watch over my mom. Watch, like she was some kind of child or something.

My mom was very with it that night while I was there.

We talked and talked.

About everything and nothing really, just talked.

When I was a child.

When she was one.

She had no regrets she told me.

She didn’t want any anyway.

“Life is too short.” She told me.

“Mom, can I get you anything?”

I asked as I got up from my chair.

“Yes, please, some water would be nice.” She had said.

Looking down at my mom I thought,

what a strong person she is.

Dad said early that she didn’t know who he was or where she was this afternoon.

Sitting back down in the chair beside her with her water in my hand I asked,

“Mom, do you know who I am?”

“Of course, you’re my son.” She said.

“I have two.

Your brother was my first and you were my last.”

We must have talked for hours it seemed.

She told me how proud she was of me.

But that she was proud to have me sober and in recovery.

That the last four and a half years she had her son back in her life.

She told me that she had been praying for me every day that I was out there using.

“Don’t use this as a reason to go out and start drinking again.” She said to me that night.

Not to go out, I thought.

God, if there was ever one this would be it.

“No mom, I won’t.” I said.

She took a couple of sips from the glass I was holding up to her lips.

God, please be with my mom, I thought.

My mom used to say, “That life was like a giant book with all the stories already written down.

Stories of those who came before,

stories that are being read right now and still many stories yet to come.”

“You know?” She said to me.

“Going to heaven is the biggest classroom of them all.

All our questions will be answered that you asked in life.”

As she looked up at me with eyes so clear.

“I’m going to school tomorrow.” She said.

“Mom, is there anything else I can get you?” I asked.

“Yes, give me a hug.” She said.

So I did.

I sat with her ‘til my father and partner came home.

I told them what she had said about tomorrow.

Dad said she’s been like that all day with him.

We decided to stay home from work that next day to be with her.

10:43 a.m. my mom had some breakfast.

At 11:30 a.m. she said to us that she loved us.

“What’s the weather outside?” She wanted to know.

“It’s a great day, Ma” Dad told her.

“A great day to be alive.”

11:48 a.m. my mother died with us holding her hands.

Now she knows I thought.

I was the last son she talked to.

The last son to hold her hand.

For the rest of us, all we can do is turn the page.

From the beginning to the end,

she was always with me.

I can’t think of a better gift to give my mom,

from her Last Son….

 

 

                                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

 

 Freedom to be Me

 

 

 

For once in my life I would like to be free.

Free to make decisions that are good for me.

But that wasn’t always how it was.

Once I found alcohol, the ability to make choices and sane decision-making were gone.

Alcoholic thinking was what I would do.

Most of my life I was like a great chess player in my mind.

Always two or three steps ahead, moving the pieces on the board for the outcome I wanted.

Manipulating the people around me, if I could.

To produce the final victory, which was the drink or drug in my hand.

But there was no real freedom in my thinking at that time in my life.

Old John Barleycorn was making the real moves on my chessboard life.

Leading me into thinking that I was the one making these great choices and leading me down the road of what I thought was happiness.

But there was no real happiness by the end of my using.

Nor was there any real freedom from my thinking.

The insanity of this disease was keeping me out there using when the end was well over. What I didn’t know was Old John had moved all my pieces on the board into no freedom for me.

Now I’m in the program, working on these steps.

Having put down that drink and drug was one of the hardest decisions to make. Especially when my thinking was so messed up that at sometimes in that first year, drinking sounded right.

The alcohol thinking and the insane decisions were still right there.

I thank God for the old-timers that helped me out.

Showing me a way from the insane life I was living.

Helping me understand that even if I wanted to drink,

I didn’t have to.

This was for me my first real freedom.

Knowing that I had choices again.

But what if I chose wrong?

Well that’s what a sponsor is for – to ask.

That’s what the twelve steps are for – to do.

Having cleared away the old chessboard and getting honest with me.

Not drinking or drugging was but the first of many decisions that I would make.

Learning how to live one day and sometimes one moment means to make choices and decisions for myself.

Wrong or right I’ve learned how to do this.

With the help of a higher power, a sponsor, having a home group and being part of a Fellowship.

Not just a side line watcher. But a doer.

Jumping in with both feet as they say.

Talking to other people in the Fellowship.

Letting others know where I am and learning to have people help me when my thinking isn’t great.

It’s not so much the drink or drug today, it’s my thinking, my decision making.

The choices that can put me in the wrong place so fast that I feel I’m back at square one. But the ability to make right choices for me is the best freedom of all.

Being able to think clearly because there is no alcohol or drugs in me is one of the greatest feelings to date.

Right or wrong, the choices we make and being accountable for our actions is freedom of self.

But the best thing of all is that I can be me.

That I am free,

and the Freedom to be Me….