‘Look!’ said Merlin, ‘that is the sword I spoke of.’ And the King looked again, and a maiden stood upon the water. ‘That is the Lady of the Lake,’ said Merlin, ‘and she is coming to you, and if you ask her courteously she will give you the sword.‘
Excalibur The Sword– Howard Pyle,1902
Photo by good2begone
To some…..this is probably an odd family photo.
Not all of the individuals….look…..like family.
But alas, they are family.
My family.
This is a tribute to my Mom.
After her and my father got married. They yearned to start a family.
But,
doctors told her there was a higher than likely chance that she would not be able to.
That was not a deterrence in their quest.
The love of motherhood did not have to emanate from her womb, it could blossom from adoption.
My older brother, sitting next to her in the photo, would be their first child.
Fast forward a bit more than a year later.
The higher than likely chance of not conceiving a child turned out to be a false prophesy……
I was born.
That’s me in the top left of the photo…..kind of.
Now she was Mom to 2.
A year and a half later……
2 became 3 with the birth of my younger brother. That’s him with the bewildered look in the Grey shirt that matches my Dad’s shirt.
Raising 3 boys all similar in age was challenging I am sure.
We were more than a handful.
But,
my Mother always longed to have a daughter.
She was an only child.
She has lots of knowledge to pass on that her dirty muddy always breaking things boys just wouldn’t understand.
Fast forward 9 long years after the birth of her last child.
Her and my father turned to adoption, once again.
Through friends of friends they learned of a couple that was having a child that they could not keep.
They and there 4 other children were living in rough conditions and could not afford another child.
My parents were contacted and told them they would be there for the birth and if the child was a female they would adopt her.
Enter my youngest brother, standing next to me and above my Father.
When he was born, my Mother held him and looked into his eyes his newly opened eyes and couldn’t…..not…..adopt him.
That’s how 3 became 4.
Discouraged to be daughterless but overjoyed with her new son, life continued on………
For 1 month and 1 day.
With a single phone call, 4 would become 5.
We have family friends that live in Chihuahua, Mexico.
They knew of my Mother’s desire to have a daughter.
I’m not sure if it is still true or not, but, back then having a child out of wedlock was a big no no in Mexico.
The phone call told the story of a prominent doctor who had a daughter who gave birth to a daughter out of wedlock. She would not be allowed to keep her. They preferred to have the child grow up in America.
Before my parents could hang up the phone, they were loading up the car and driving to receive the gift she always wanted.
A daughter, standing at the far right of the photo.
A photo may be worth a thousand words.
To the 5 kids surrounding the woman in the center of this one, it only says one-
Mom.
I don’t do death well.
I can make up stories with it as a main topic, watch stuff on the dummy box that is engulfed in it, read the news every day where it is a mainstay of virility.
But in reality, it’s not that easy.
It is the end result of life.
Once the first cry out of the womb is bellowed, the clock to the end…..begins.
As expected as it is…….whenever it happens it is almost never expected.
When it does happen…and it is someone that at one time or another I ran around with, it becomes hard for me to deal with.
You know…..I’ve been clean and sober for quite a few years now.
The actual length of that time really doesn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t and haven’t been in AA or any other support group for a considerable length of time either.
I love being sober.
I just don’t feel I need to talk about it to be able to maintain it.
I just do.
I also hated seeing people coming in and out, in and out, in and out……until some just quit coming back in.
“Someone may have to die for me to say sober” I would hear in meetings.
Which I think is crap, by the way.
Anyway….
There’s this guy I used to sponsor when I was in AA.
Every time I saw him I would say,
“Dude….you’ve got tattoos….ON YOUR FACE!”
I would say that, because he did.
He would come over and have dinner with my family almost every night. We would talk about what was going on and my wife and I would give him suggestions.
Always to the point….never beating around the proverbial bush.
Before I sponsored him, he had like 12 other sponsors.
After me, probably many others.
Regardless of the state of his sobriety and my exit from AA, we remained friendly and in contact.
He would come around.
Then be gone.
And….repeat.
We got word yesterday that he got killed by getting run over by a car shortly after getting kicked out of a sober living house.
I hadn’t seen or spoke to him in a few months but he will be on my mind every day.
I drive a beat up truck that was green when it rolled of the factory floor decades ago.
When I got it, it had been completely spray painted black….with individual spray paint cans and recently repossessed by the owner for lack of payment.
The guy who it was repossessed from was the same one who spray painted it.
And was the same guy I used to sponsor that had tattoos on his face.
I’m just kind of numb.
Emotions aren’t my thing either.
I just hope he is now at peace.
As for me…
I will keep on truckin’
Good2begone 