College, what a blast!

Ok so this is just a RANDOM thingy.. don’t get excitied. really. READ ON!

My hands were clammy as they reached across the starched hospital sheets toward Momma’s sleeping form. She looked so frail in the white room at the hospital. Those machine screaming out every moment, telling the doctors she was still alive.
The tears welled in my eyes, but I knew I had to be strong for so many people, but mostly for Momma. I missed the sweet smile that played on Momma’s lips when I did something wrong, she never yelled. She never got mad.
She didn’t yell when I burnt the cake on her birthday, or broke great-grandma’s vase. And she didn’t break a sweat when I broke curfew. When I talked back, she laughed and sent me upstairs, when I complained, she told me stories.
I clasped Momma’s hand; it was like holding onto snow. It was so cold, so numbing. Like all of her life had been sucked out of her. Momma was never cold, she was always warm, always so full of life.
Momma was so sick, it wasn’t fair, not to me, or Momma, and we were all we had. The social workers took away my brothers and sisters, but I wouldn’t leave Momma. No matter how many drugs she took to get better, no matter how many made her worse.
Momma’s eyes opened and she looked at me. Her eyes were so dull, so lifeless; they tore at my heart, digging all the way to the core. Momma tried to smile, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t filled with the warmth it wasn’t filled with the joy she always had when the little kids where running around.
But the love was still there, the love that could overflow the ocean. The love that was always there, the before-the-sick love that I had always known, and I could see my momma in that frail, pail, nearly lifeless form.
I could see the sun bonnet and the freckles. I could see the sunburns and the swim lessons. I could see the band-aids on scraped knees, and the hugs and chocolates for broken hearts.
I could hear the encouraging words, when she shouted from the bleachers at his hockey games, or her basketball games, or when she clapped the loudest at the recitals. Or when she would tell us how good the plays we made up all by ourselves were.
Her blue eyes weren’t the bright and sparkly ones I had grow up with though, they were dull, drained, and cold, Momma was cold.
When she first got sick it was only a little here and there. The medicine she took was what made her sick. I didn’t know it then, how could I have stopped her?
I didn’t know that what she called medicine was killing her. The doctors said she was ‘addicted’ to cocaine.
Addiction was something that never went with momma. Momma was a perfect example of perfect, she was first class, she was the best, and she was my momma.
But as I held her onto that frail hand, lying on those starched sheets, I saw the addiction with my eyes, but I saw momma with my mind.
The tears that fell out of my eyes, I didn’t mean to let them, they came out all on their own.
And when her hand reached up shakily and brushed them away, I didn’t mean to let out that sob. And I didn’t mean to hold her so tight when I hugged her that last time.
And as that machine screamed the end I did mean to remember momma’s last words.
“I’ll always love you.”