MOTHER'S DAY

Cold and bitter. So’s the weather. I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if she’d stuck around. Although she died when I was 18, she was gone long before that. We can delve later. For now, let’s just leave it at cold and bitter.

For whatever reason, a vicious whiplash from a 1989 car wreck has decided to return for a visit. It feels like a hollow-point exit wound and I’ve been forced to dip into the hard stuff: one Vicodin Friday night and two yesterday. Having to resort to opiates bothers the hell out of me, not only because I want medical marijuana to be the answer to everything, but because opiates and alcohol killed my mother. And my sister.

My mother. My sister. My mother. My sister.

Quick. Somebody slap me. Paging Jack Nicholson...

Wow. I didn’t think I was going to pull myself out of that one for a second there. As any pilot will tell you, the only way out of a tailspin is to floor it. So, just for a minute, I dove in. Grief. Loss. Anger.

I’ll be needing all the energy those emotions can generate for the fight ahead.

All I have to do is think – even for a minute – what it’s like to go through life’s big moments without a mother, and my heart goes out to Mollie Fry’s kids – one daughter is pregnant – and on Mother’s Day, both their parents are beginning Day Six in federal prison. Six days into a five year “mandatory minimum” sentence.

Given how sick both Mollie and Dale are, this is almost a death sentence.

At least my mother was blessed with sudden death. One minute she was walking up the stairs with a bag of groceries and the next she was dead of a heart attack. At least that’s what they told me.

So as I sit here, trying to work my way into writing about Mollie and Dale, I find myself wondering not only what it would have been like to have a mother like Mollie all these years, but what it must be like to actually have Mollie for a mother and know she’s suffering in jail without either of the medications available to me right now.

Thinking about what that must be like for Mollie's family really burns me. Have I mentioned that my granny (on my father's side) was in the Signers Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution? As far as I'm concerned, it's time for patriots to stand up and fight for their rights all over again.

I’m don't need any more of the Vicodin. The three I took broke the cycle of pain. I'm glad I have them, because they are effective against sudden, acute pain and I can't afford edible medical marijuana right now, which is equally good for acute pain, with none of the side effects of an opiate. The bottom line for me is that if I’d had to lay there, bunched up and sleepless for two nights, it would be even worse now. But it's time to get some work done and opiates take too heavy a toll on the creative process. I can face the day, knowing I’m coming to the end of this particular pain cycle and that my depression may be something else entirely – namely grief, loss and anger.

It is Mother’s Day, after all. And I did have a mother. She was smart and funny. She wanted to be a writer. So here’s to you, Ma. Let’s share a little bowl of Blue Dream mixed with a pinch of Hillbilly Kush and remember the good times – sitting around that little yellow Formica table in the kitchen, overlooking Suffolk Downs and the harbor spread out at the bottom of the hill, talking about how great it was going to be when I was older and we could drink coffee and smoke cigarettes together like grownups.