Heads or Tails: Memory

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This week’s theme at Heads or Tails is “Share a Special Memory”.

Yesterday I threatened to write another post about one of the Silverchair concerts I went to last year, but this morning I was inspired by Jeff Buckley-primarily his song “The Last Goodbye“. I kind of suspect that we were suppose to write a “good” memory-but I like to be a bit different from anyone else.

One Thursday in October I was sitting in my dining room, playing on my new laptop.  I had had prior plans that day to see “The Departed” at the movie theater with The Bookworm, but for reasons unknown I had called and canceled.  There was no reason to cancel, I just didn’t feel right leaving the house for some reason.

I was ripping my cd collection into the laptop when the phone rang.  I thought it was probably one of my parents calling so I was surprised to hear an unfamiliar voice at the end of the line.  The man introduced himself as a doctor at the hospital that my “Mommom” was at.  He asked if I had any way of getting in touch with the rest of the family as Mommom was not doing well.

I hung up the phone in shock and quickly called my mother to relay in the information.  She assured me that she would take care of everything, and so not knowing what else to do…I returned to the computer.  I was still in shock, and not totally processing the information.

The enormity of what was happening hit me a few minutes later.  The song “In a Little While” by U2 came on and I as I was listening to the lyrics, everything just hit me.  I understood then that there was a good possibility that my Mommom had passed away, or was very close to death.

My Dad came home from work and we talked for a few minutes and I told him what was going on.  He got on the phone and I went outside with the dogs.  When I was outside I looked over at Mommom’s house, standing just across the street.  I knew for sure then that she was gone and when I went back inside my Dad confirmed my fear.  We hugged for a minute or two, and he warned me not to tell my sisters and brother as he wanted to tell them.  I went up to my room then, in order to grieve in the privacy of my room-away from my sister who had just returned home from school.  Through my tears I went online and posted a message on a message board I posted on, telling the people on there what had happened.  It seemed like an odd thing to do, but I had posted on there after the first phone call.  Not long after I posted that message I got a phone call from a member on that board who I chatted with a lot both on and off the board.  She knew I would be taking the news hard, as she knew how close I had been to Mommom.  I can’t remember what was said during that conversation, but I was calmed somewhat-and deeply touched that she would take the time to find my phone number and check up on me.

While it was a pretty hard time in my life, it really was amazing to have someone who was virtually a “stranger” reach out like that.  To this day I am still close to that woman, we exchange frequent emails and I am determined that soon we’ll get together as we only live about an hour from one another.

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Filed under Meme, Personal