What next?

It's a month to the day since my last post, and 6 hours after previous post, my world changed almost beyond my comprehension. The chest x-ray never happened. Chelle was supposed to take her that morning, and they had agreed to wake up at 7am. We had left all the bedroom doors cracked open in case she needed anything, and the brass bell that had once belonged to my great-grandmother sat beside her bed. I heard Chelle step into the hallway and walk into Mom's room. Heard her call to her over and over, her "Mom?" quickly morphing into a more shrill, "Mommy?" that launched me out of bed and into the room where Chelle stood over her body, which was on the floor between the wall and her bed. The truth is, it always annoyed me when Chelle occasionally referred to our parents as Daddy and Mommy, well into our adulthood. The same way she calls our neighbors Miss Rose and Mr. Julius, as if we were living in the South, circa 1954. I called 911 and screamed at Chelle to help me turn her over, she was a little slow from the panic. I also yelled at the 911 operator because it seemed to take way too long for the ambulance to find its way to our house. Her fingertips were cold, her eyes were unfocused slits and her chest was warm. Later, the brown-skinned EMT would tell me that this was probably because she was laying near the heater. I still only half believe it. Her lips were stiff with rigor but we both tried mouth to mouth on her even though I knew the truth all along.

When they told me she was gone, Chelle grabbed me, and we hugged, and then she tried to ease me back into the room I slept in, which is small and was piled with my clothes and a complete mess. There was no way the two of us could fit into the mess, and I didn't care whether or not the EMT's saw my grief, in fact I'd rather them see that then the mess that lay behind me, so I fought her on that and won. Then I ran down the street to get our neighbor Rose, who was also a nurse, and one of Mom's closest friends. I passed Freddie on the way, and she started to ask me if it was my Mom and I cut her off and said, "Yes, she's dead," I never slowed down my pace., intent to get Rose, hoping she could help. No one was at their house, which meant I had to face Freddie again, who was spinning around in circles, while the snow drifted around us. I apologized for my rudeness and hugged her, resenting her neediness along the way. I never claimed to be a good Christian, or any sort of Christian at all.