love: staying

last july 4th, a local runner fell in the stairwell of her townhouse, suffered a C2 spinal injury and has been in a coma since she was found, hours later, by a friend.

that much is true.

@ kim’s bed

Heya, mom. Yeah, so I’m sorry I didn’t come last week. Alex was sick, he had some kind of stomach flu where shit, sorry I mean stuff, was coming out both ends and Dad wasn’t around and I didn’t want to leave him alone. He’s better now, though. Dad took us to see 300 last night, and it was freakin’ awesome – it’s supposed to be about an ancient battle between the Spartans & Persians, but really it’s like an Ultimate Fighting match with some CGI creatures thrown in. You would have dug it. Dad hated it, of course, and when we got back in the car he yelled at me for tracking mud on the passenger side and Alex didn’t say a thing even though it’s his fault and even Dad could have figured that out if he weren’t so wrapped up in his own… stuff. Anyway, it was cool for him to take us out. And he said we might go to Aspen for Christmas this year. And, um, well it’s spring now, getting warmer, and your daffodils look really nice: the tall yellow ones and the shorter white ones. I know it sounds weird, but they remind me of a picture I have of you – you probably don’t remember cos it was a long time ago, like 10 years when we were all together, camping in Yosemite. We did this long day hike that seemed to go straight up the freakin’ mountain, and you hiked so fast that sometimes I had to run to catch up with you. My pack bounced up on and down on my back and that Nalgene bottle beat the crap out of my kidneys it felt like and I don’t remember anything about the trail, or what we passed, because all I could see was your legs in front of me and the way your calf muscles moved when your foot landed and took off. That was back when I thought you were an X-Man, remember? Like Storm. We finally got to the top, which was all wind-swept rock and a couple scruffy, short trees and you stopped at the last cairn – which was a good thing, cos I was about to freakin’ pass OUT – and when you turned around and saw me, you looked startled, as if you didn’t even know I was there. You looked down at me and there was something in your eyes I had never seen before. It was hard and wild and… oh, something. Do you remember that, Mom? Do you? You were breathing heavy (for an X-man) and you looked at me with those weird, startled eyes. “Wings,” you whispered, or least I think that’s what you said because it was hard to hear you. “Wings.”

We stood there listening to the wind, waiting for Dad and Alex, but the next people up the trail were a couple of Europeans, German maybe? – and you asked if they would take a picture of you and your son, and that’s the picture I’ve got in my desk drawer, under a bunch of back-up CDs nobody will ever need. In it you’re tall and straight, and I’m the knock-kneed, platinum-haired kid with one arm wrapped around your legs. The wind’s blowing your hair back and I can see that your eyes are back to normal, and your smile is your typical picture smile but it’s funny – if I squint my eyes and hold the picture really close, there’s a faint cluster of clouds that almost billows out from your shoulders.

Okay Ma, I gotta go. Alex has soccer practice and Dad says I can drive even more now that the weather’s getting better, so that’s really cool. Maybe I’ll drop Alex off at Ursuline instead, since he plays like a girl anyway. Heh, just jokin’.

Be back next week. I love you, Mom.