The last time I saw Mom

The last time I saw Mom was 15 years ago.  I've thought about her a lot since then.  She'd always get in arguments with my father, storm out the door and scream a little louder; sometimes she even took the car and didn't come back until the next day.  I remember one time, must have been 7 or 8 years old, I brought home a Christmas ornament I made in school.  I got off that bus and ran as fast as a gazelle into the house to show Mom.  My Dad put me on his shoulders and helped me put it on the very top of the tree.  It was my first Christmas without her. 

She came back a few days later.  She gave me a hug like I was her favorite teddy bear and I melted into her arms.  She cooked me my favorite breakfast the next morning.  I forgave her immediately, because, well she's my mother and I'm her son.  She even stayed long enough to see me lose my first tooth.  Sometimes she'd stay for weeks at a time.  Sometimes, she'd give me another hug.  It's a funny thing, looking back on your life, you never know the moments you'll remember until they're gone forever.

My Dad never explained to me why she left.  I never bothered to ask.  She was gone and that was all that mattered.  I blamed myself mostly, but I held it against my father more and more each day she was gone.  I'd ask him where she was and he'd point to my heart and say, "She's in here".  Every night, before I went to sleep, I'd wrap my arms around my chest and tell her, "I love you Mom". 

My father always wanted me to go to college.  I had no intention of doing anything my father wanted.  If he didn't want me to go, I probably would have.  Once I turned 18, I dropped out of High School and moved in with a couple guys that I thought were my best friends.  A few months later, we stole an old pickup truck and drove it as far away as we could.  I got a job in construction, mainly fetching tools and hammering the occasional nail, but it paid well and it was the only thing I was ever good at.  That was my life for a while, and never looked back until the accident.

It's a strange feeling seeing your father lying in a hospital bed, not knowing if he's going to make it.  It's another feeling altogether when there's so much you never told him.  I like to think he heard everything I told him that night.  I like to think he forgave me.  If there's a heaven, I know he's on the roof of his own father's house, waiting for me to fetch him that hammer he always forgot to carry.

It was my first night back in the house.  It had never been so quiet.  All I wanted to hear were their voices.  All I wanted to listen to were their screams.  I found an old picture on the dresser in my parent's room of the three of us sitting on the front steps of the house on the day we moved in.  I'm keeping it for my Dad.  Sometimes, I like to think there is no heaven.  I like to think every night before I go to sleep, I can wrap my arms around my chest and tell him, "I love you Dad".