Cheating Gods of Death (Sequel to L: Find A GirLfriend)

Comfort

[This (love) song is for the parents. Just thought I'd throw that out there.]

Near the new year, Dad took Mom out for the dinner they had the reservations for, as promised.

Mom had dressed him up in his best suit (which I didn't know he had, but God was it nice), his lankiness somehow hidden. By then, he had advanced enough in physical therapy that he would go out in public with forearm crutches. He still tired easily, and used the wheelchair more often around the house. She had even put makeup on him to liven his practically monochromatic countenance. His hair was combed through, but not parted "correctly", giving him the look of an urban aristocrat or an artist rather than a homeless man. I speak as if he looked different, he didn't, but he looked nicer for the occasion.

When my Mom descended the stair, we all saw the sheer magnitude of that dress. It stands in my memory as monolithic as a grand chateau, decorated and flawless. The dress itself was plainer, but fit her perfectly, the greens making the houseplants jealous. A dainty sash rested in the crook of her elbows, trailing behind her onto the reverse side of her waist. Her hair was sprayed, tied, and manipulated in such a way that it reminded me of a lion with greek-inspired details.

Even with the crutches and shaking hands, he picked her up and spun her once, reminding me faintly of the human spirit. She was, after all, a great deal heavier than he was, so she said. He was taller than her, yes, but he also was a near-rail. My mother was generally curvy and powerful, a dress size 16 because of her bust. She had a rack. She HAD a rack.

Don't neglect the fact that he suffered a mass brain aneurism (technically a subarachnoid hemorrhage), followed by a vasospasm, sat in a coma for five years, the last month or so his muscles atrophied (slightly) due to hospital staff neglecting to get a stand-in physical therapist to manipulate them when the usual therapist went on maternity leave. He survived this, and he found the strength to lift my mother up.

As I said earlier, things like this didn't affect me like they should have.

From what Mom had said, the date went well. She had some brilliant crab-scargot (crab prepared as escargot) and bruchetta, she also convinced Father to finish a chicken florentine. You see, she would convince him every once and a while to eat properly so that he would retain a level of health. He ate it for her comfort, I believe. Then, they had white wine and a dessert, and left.

He came home pleased, also, but exhausted. They slept as I had found them previously after the holidays, well and all over each other in ways reminiscent of newborn pups. Clothed, but blind pups.

How one sleeps in a suit is unknown to me, but my mother's dress was unzipped down the back, her naked torso face down, but just out of the sheath.

Past her birthday in January, things began to meet rocky shores.

First, the headaches.

He would suffer headaches in the front, putting pain behind his eyes and giving him double vision. Once, he slumped down a wall and laid on the floor, until I found him. In the latter days of January, his speech had begun to have episodes of regression. Mom, being wise, took him to the ER one afternoon when he had a particularly bad episode with all of the above symptoms.

They made him stay. The next day, he told us that he felt numb and significantly weaker. Mom half credited it to something psychological relating to hospitals, half to the two sizable (unruptured) aneurisms they found on his prefrontal cortex. They hadn't burst, but they weren't about to let him die after all.

The hardest night was the night that followed. We came home alone, all of us gathering for hybrid fruity pebbles/strawberry special K for dinner at 8:48 P.M. Mom served us, and we ate in silence until she spoke.