The Night My Life Changed

It was my mom’s fifty-sixth birthday. Mom was having a good day despite the Radiation treatments. Mom’s brother, uncle Richard was living with us, my dad, my sister, and me. I was off that night from my security guard job. When I woke up that evening, we surprised mom with a cake.

The Brain-tumor and the treatments for it had taken a toll. My mom was almost completely blind, and she couldn’t keep everyone’s names straight, but that night was different. She was almost like her old self.

We sang Happy Birthday and we ate cake and ice cream, she talked to her grandkids who lived in Japan, where my brother and sister-in-law taught English. She talked to my brother and sister-in-law in South Carolina too.

We laughed and cut up; it was the first time in months we enjoyed being a family. We wrapped up the party and went to our rooms. Mom was tired. My uncle had taken her to see her favorite beach, and she had Radiation treatments that day as well.

My uncle and I were sharing a bedroom, he was lying down, while I was lying on my bed watching the X-Files. Fifteen minutes into the show, my sister burst into the room. She was screaming and crying that mom needed help.

Uncle Richard and I ran to the bedroom, where my dad was kneeling on the bathroom floor next to where my mom fell. Uncle Richard went to his side and knelt next to him. Richard turned to me where I was standing in the doorway. “Lawson, call 911,” he said calmly.

I was a security guard, I had called 911 several times in my life, but that time it was different. I was calm and professional, but I was dying inside. I watched as the Paramedics worked on my mom, as she flat-lined and they used the paddles.

They got her heart beating and put her in the ambulance. We all got dressed and headed to the hospital that was just up the street. My mom had flat-lined again in the ambulance. The Doctor made sure my dad signed all the paperwork before he told us mom was gone.

We went to say our goodbyes, she looked so peaceful on the gurney. After we said goodbye, we went home and went to bed.

My whole life changed at that moment, and I was terrified. I was a momma’s boy, I was always with her because my dad was always too tired, or he didn’t want to be bothered. People would make comments, they thought mom and I were married.

I knew what was going on was unhealthy, but I didn’t know how to stop what was going on. What made things worse, my dad was a life-long Air Force, an enlisted man. He was deployed most of the time when I and my siblings were young. We thought he was the enemy.

I was diagnosed with Brain-Damage and Dyslexia when I was a child. My development was stunted, to put it mildly. The first thing that came to my mind the night my mom died was that my dad was going to throw me out into the street.

It took a while, but I found out that my dad wasn’t the ogre my mom had convinced me he was. He was a flawed man, but we all are flawed, but he was a good man that loved me with all his heart.

My mom never accepted that I was an adult. She wanted to control everything in my life. My dad undid the chains. He allowed beer in the house, I could go out for drinks and not worry about catching hell when I came home.

My dad encouraged me to get a checking account, and I got my first credit card. I was treated like an adult for the first time in my life. It wasn’t always pretty, my dad and I were both stubborn, there were a few arguments, but we learned to get along.

I had more freedom; I could be myself around my dad and uncle and I learned how men talked and interacted with each other. The night my mom died was a shock, but I look back on that time and I can see where my mom’s death was a good thing for me.

I loved my mom, I still miss her twenty-seven years after her passing, but if she hadn’t died, I don’t think I would be married and independent now. I was a few weeks shy of my thirty-fifth birthday, but I can honestly say that my mom’s death was the beginning of my maturity into the man I was meant to be.

I healed the relationship with my dad, we built a strong relationship that lasted for twelve years, until he died from cancer. My dad and I had a good relationship that my mom didn’t allow when she was alive.

Change isn’t always fun, but if you get through it, it will make you a better person. I have a good life now, I have more self-confidence and I’m not afraid of taking risks or being myself, and none of that growth would have happened if my mom hadn’t died.

Don’t be afraid of change, embrace it, and heal relationships with your family if you can, you will not regret it.