I’m supposed to edit a column tonight.
But I don’t … feel … like it.
I should search the internet for new publishing outlets, but …
I don’t … feel … like it.
My career coach would call this a gremlin – that nasty little voice in our head that sabotages any movement toward good. When it strikes, figure out the root of the problem, push the gremlin away, and move on to your greater good.
I … don’t … care. I don’t … feel … like it.
I feel like screaming. As loud as I can. Over the fire trucks and ambulances and car horns and cell phones and police cars and pedestrians and … It doesn’t matter. Just let me scream and scream and scream and scream … Until the pain goes away. Until the tears stop. Until I can turn the clock back and bring my uncle back. Better yet make it two years, or whatever point in time he got leukemia and the clock started running a little faster.
Not that I paid attention. Sure he had leukemia. Sure he was in his eighties. But his son, my favorite cousin, was a doctor. A good doctor. Every hospital visit, every transfusion, every cough, hiccup, and breath – he oversaw.
So I wasn’t too worried. I had enough time.
Because last year his brother, my other uncle, died. Two weeks later my goduncle died. Two weeks after that my girlfriend’s uncle, another play uncle died.
We don’t get more than we can bear.
So I had enough time.
Who should care that he caught pneumonia and for weeks we spent night after night in ICU. Who should care that the doctors and nurses seemed to have given up. The family hadn’t. I hadn’t.
We create our own fantasy.
I had enough time.
Two weeks before he died another play dad died. Unexpectedly. Before Thanksgiving. Number four. Deaths come in three’s. Old wives tell. Two to go. But I still brushed aside the thought my uncle’s time was up. His fever had dropped and lungs cleared.
I had enough time.
Time to ask all those questions I’d put off. You know the ones you ask as a child, take for granted as an adult, and cherish as you get older. Those questions whose answers define who you are. Those questions that fill the holes in your life that you didn’t even know existed until you heard the answer. Those questions that you kept putting off because … you had enough time.
Such as, ‘what was my mother/aunts/uncles/cousins like as children.” Maybe he could explain the family wounds and shut downs. Maybe he could drive away the nagging thought that my grandmother, the woman who taught me unconditional love, was not as perfect as my memory fades. To find out otherwise …
Maybe he could tell me about the family joy. And hope. Developed in the fields of Mississippi and Tennessee.
I wanted to ask him what my grandfather was like who died before I was born. About other brothers and sisters. Relatives and friends. Schools and towns. Segregation. Integration. Denigration. I wanted to ask him … I wanted to ask.
I also wanted to tell him who he was and how he was, was important to me.
Not just through words but through questions.
I had enough time. My uncle didn’t.
So I salved my despairing heart with a box of Godiva chocolates and a trip to Lincoln Center. It didn’t work. Tears still flowed. My heart still broke. And my mind kept mourning. Until I met Mabel.
At 65th & Broadway in the middle of the night she bounced across the street greeting cops and passersby equally. Caught at the light I expected her to bounce pass me but she stopped. And sang. Danced. Then sang some more.
Unlike most times and the others nearby, I asked her name, like I normally talked to strangers at New York curbs.
“Mabel,” she said.
My energy was sapped. Why did I start this conversation? But I had no right to bring her down. Not that I think anyone could. So I said, “Well Mabel, happy holidays.”
My gift – the biggest smile I’d allowed myself to see all day. And a bear hug wrapped in her bright yellow dingy coat.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It will be all right.” Then she continued west.
I closed my eyes briefly to blink back the tears. The light changed and I headed east. Halfway across I turned back but Mabel has disappeared. Where? I didn’t know. How? I’m not sure. It was awfully quick.
A thought flashed across my mind – was she an angel?
On earth?
Sure she was.
Because not only had she brought brief cheer, she’d reminded me how much could be packed into brief moments.
If you took the time.
Tomorrow I will call three relatives. Tell them I love them and ask a few questions.
I’ve got the time.
