My last Winter story….Entry for April 05, 2007

I woke up this morning in a hazy fog. I had been sicker then I can ever remember….flu-like fever…non-eating…sweat-filled pillow…nightmares…yet I still needed to be at work. The dayshift guy just had an eye operation. Walking the ten blocks from Port Authority in the pouring rain without an umbrella…getting poked by unbrellas…people and reality seemed not real…a hazy-hallucanagetic quality. Colors and sounds distant. Cars honking. The subway thundering like an earthquake underneath…I had underdressed…I thought it was Spring…what happened to spring(I began shivering..i thought of my warm bed…or even my chair at work)–the bus ride seemed even longer today. It made me remember once when I was a kid waiting for a bus with a bunch of other kids. A brutally cold Winter morning. I noticed that I was the only kid there without gloves. When I finally got to school my hands were still so red and numb that I had a hard time gripping my pencil.
ONCE…..before you died, Mom……you came up to me in Barbaras backyard. I remember exactly the precise area….but it is funny….I have no idea what occasion we were all back there for….or who was even there. But you approached me….awkwardly….and you said, “I’m sorry, George.”
It was probably a year before you died….and you knew you were dying. I remember being speechless….sorry…..for what?….did you just step on my foot?….or are you apologizing for being a bad mother?…..I just said…..”It’s allright.”
The day the fever broke today April 5. I felt so much better. It was like coming out of a caccoon! All that rain had made trees start to bloom and tulips start to flower……but it was still so cold. The sky was blue…..then the sky was black. (Typical March weather here) Then it started to snow……and I watched it come down. Standing there looking up at the black and blue sky….trying to figure out which crazy cloud starting snowing on me. Everything was brand new to me. I was out of my caccoon. The world was a blooming flower. I am sorry I never cried at you funeral dear mother…..and I am sorry I haven’t accepted your apology……yet.