Post 8 Day 9: John: Brainwaves.

“Hi, Sweetie. It’s me, John.”

Of course it is. John, I know your voice. You sound just fine. Like you’re right here next to me.

“There’s good news here. Apparently. there’s a lot going on inside that handsome head of yours. Lots of brain activity, which is an amazing sign, Drew.”  Drew’s morning nurse, “Wendy L.” on her badge, arrives with Drew’s morning meds.  I feel sheepish at first, being caught in a monologue with a comatose person.

“Don’t mind me. It’s good to talk to Mr. Carter.  Lets him know you’re here.” Wendy’s accent is Caribbean, possibly Jamaican. We’ve become good buds.

  "See Drew, we’ve got company. This is Wendy. She’s one of the good ones.” I winked conspiratorially at Wendy.

“You’ve got a good husband, here, Mr. Carter. Here every day, like clockwork. Even brings me coffee. Yessir. He’s a good one.” Wendy releases her musical laugh and, addressing Drew, adds, “We’re going to adjust your breathing tube. I promise to be as gentle as I can.”

“I was telling Drew that Dr. Creasy is encouraged by Drew’s increased brain wave activity. That’s a good sign, right?”

Wendy smiled and busied herself with Drew’s tubing. “Sure. Absolutely.” I want, more than anything this morning, to be convinced.

Day 11: John: Scraps

“Hey, honey. It’s me. And Kit’s here.” Wendy has just finished her morning meds delivery. “Kit and I stayed up last night looking at old pictures of you and the duck and your dog, Missy. And the house on Linwood Road. Remember? You took me there.”

Kit steps closer to Drew’s bed, gently moving his respirator tubing to one side. “Hey, Drew. I grabbed some old scrap books for us to look at when you wake up. They’re gonna make you laugh.”

In the past week, Kit and I have developed a schedule of sorts that gives me a break each morning around 11, or until after Dr. Creasy has made his rounds. Emma comes every other afternoon for respite or moral support, whatever I seem to need most. In what Emma deems a miracle, I seem to have developed a new supply of patience in the face of the unpredictable nature of doctors, rounds, and the dissemination of the precious progress they can report.

Kit pulls a chair bedside and sits. “I’ve been looking at those old grade school yearbooks. Drew, you remember Mrs. Bowman? She read to us after lunch. And Mrs. Truford, the office secretary at Oakhaven Elementary? And mean old Mrs. Sheffield? Can you nod, or squeeze my hand? Just to let me know you’re hearing me? C’mon Drew. Wake up, honey.”

Things don’t work here like they did when I was conscious, Kit. By that I mean, I can clearly recall some things instantly. A sequence of events, what happened and how it made me feel then. Sometimes it all comes like an avalanche of  feelings and images and whole memories cascading simultaneously in my head.

I remember Mrs. Sheffield. And wonderful Mrs. Grant. And Mrs. Bowman. And walking to the bus stop with Missy and our duck, Donald. It’s been over 50 years. It’s a lot to take in.

I get to re-live feelings, too.  My naivete as a child makes me chuckle. Being wanted so much. And being loved so unconditionally makes me feel strangely secure and sad at the same time. I feel a tear roll down my cheek. I want to tell you and John not to worry. It’s not that kind of pain.

Day 11: Drew, The Dream: A Friendly Southern Town       

Kit’s presence and her mention of our elementary school days ignites another firestorm of memory so vivid and present that it feels like I am actually living the moment again. These are our folks, our family and our town.

            John, I must have told you this story. Right?

When you grow up in a friendly town, especially a friendly Southern town in the 1960s, you benefit from a kind of insulation from the harshness of the adult world. At least that was my experience of it. That may have been the result of having loving parents and generous family members who were either taught or intuited the kindnesses we afforded each other. It could also be attributed to what has often been referred to as “a gentler time.”

            My older sister Kit and I came into our parents’ lives after a seventeen-year wait. It had been generally understood that children weren’t a possibility for them. Adoption proceedings were finally in the works when, at age thirty-seven, Mama became pregnant. After waiting so long, Mama could barely contain her news, but dutifully waited fourteen weeks to get past the danger zone of what were then termed “geriatric pregnancies.”

            Mama had been excited to announce her news to the group she assumed would embrace it most fully: her bridge club, a revered institution, especially in the ’50s and ‘60s and more explicitly ordained in the South. The bridge club was a social gathering to which you were first vetted, and then invited. Long-standing clubs had well-established memberships, usually no more than eight, which made for a cozy group of two tables who could be accommodated for afternoon refreshments or, more ambitiously, lunch. One’s entrée into a club usually occurred through substitution. To be asked to substitute was tantamount to being invited to audition for the group. Social compatibility was the primary requirement. It didn’t hurt if you were a good bridge player. Fortunately, Mama exuded congeniality and had bridge skills that were hard to miss and easy to envy.

            Appropriate for the early ’50s,  Mama looked radiant in her green, ivy-patterned afternoon tea dress and gloves, and she strode into Polly Kinton’s foyer looking like she knew something. Something that you didn’t. Barely five minutes into the first hand, Mama announced her joyful news to a group of seven ladies whose reactions could be summed up in one word: stunned.

            The reaction, while uncharitable, was more understandable given the makeup of the group and the tenor of the times. These were ladies who, past forty, were of “a certain age” for whom a pregnancy of their own would likely be met with a mixture of shock and dread. Most of these women had children approaching adulthood. Melanie Cook had two grandchildren. None of these women, save Mama, had ever worked outside the home. True, Kareen Knowles had started holding Tupperware parties to the delight of her neighbors, and Dot Marin was the first official “Avon Lady” in Lee Hy Park. But the notion of “career woman” bordered on foreign for this group at this time.

The notion of being pregnant near forty bordered on terrifying.