WATTYS LONG LIST. He's got three polyamorous, pole dancing moms and his world is the stuff of which teen boy fantasies are made. But when he falls for a feisty cancer patient who is about to die, he truly learns how to live.
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I was soooo bored after they left. I tried to sleep, but the nurses kept coming in. And then I had some pain in my side so I couldn't get comfortable and...God, I don't know. I just didn't realize how ADD I was until that room was completely empty and quiet.
Sometimes I listened to other people's conversations, which was depressing. There was one family that seemed like they'd had a lot of financial issues due to whatever was wrong with the guy they were visiting.
So some of the family members started arguing about who'd done the most for him, who'd visited and taken care of him at home—really yelling at each other. To the point that somebody came and told them to remember this was a hospital and people were trying to rest.
That made me feel bad for whoever it was they were arguing about. I never had a normal family, remember, so it's sort of hard for me to understand that kind of behavior.
I used to hear people say they hated Thanksgiving and Christmas because all the family did was yell at each other. But we were always just thrilled that we were going to have a big meal somewhere probably, so to us those holidays were a big relief, at least for that reason. We also got toys from churches or shelters or whatever. Stuff we never would've had otherwise.
These guys reminded me of how I had always sort of thought that being dirt poor kept it real in a weird way. You're grateful just to be alive. And you have to love and help each other just to stay alive.
So I never fought with my brothers and sisters except about little stupid shit, annoying shit, which they'd always quit doing if I said so because I was the only father they had and they were always scared I was going to leave like the other men in our lives had. Gracie was always scared of that, too. She used to get all sad every time I left the house almost, except for when I went to school.
"Don't stay out late, son," she'd beg me. Those eyes, man. My heart would melt.
I also yelled at them about stuff they did that was dangerous. Stuff I had to teach them not to do. I admit that. But we would never have started yelling at each other about who was taking care of Gracie or even who was taking care of the littler kids, because we all pitched in as best we could.
In fact, the littler kids? They did whatever they could do, too. I'm not kidding. If you could walk, you pitched in somehow. Even the 3-year-old, Katie, would bring you cookies or something.
Seriously, she did that. All the time. I'd be sitting on the couch and she'd crawl up and almost shove a cookie in my mouth. And it was always when I looked sort of sad or something. Cause she knew. And wanted to cheer me up.
Man, I miss those guys. Those moments. So maybe that's the real reason it upset me a little bit to hear this other family screaming at each other.
