Things spring up

Its not very easy to put on your jogging shoes early in the morning. Most of the time I see them as twenty pound weights that I'm about to strap to my ankles. The lake is lonely in the morning so it leaves plenty of time for thinking. Sometimes thoughts just spring up out of nowhere, things that I haven't thought about in years.

When I first started at the place I work for now taking care of people with mental disabilities I had a case worker that just kind of put me anywhere. I never had one client that I worked with but various individuals in whom absolutely scared me to death. I mean putting lives in the hands of a 19 year old who pretty much before that spent all her free time and money doing drugs and getting into whatever she could find is.....an interesting idea.

For some reason I thought about this older black lady who lived with her mother in North Minneapolis. They had a small house full of nick knacks and religious posters. She was small and crumpled over like a discarded wrapper. One of her goals was cooking. Sure I've worked in atmospheres before where I have cooked but to come up with something creative on my own stopped at a grilled cheese sandwich.
"So do you know how to make collard greens?" she asked as we were standing in the pantry. I don't think I would have ever known what collard greens were if it hadn't been for my best friend since grade school being black. She would always talk about collard greens and mac and cheese for thanksgiving which I thought was weird.
"No, I mean I've heard of collard greens but I don't know how to make them.... In fact I don't even think I really know what they are." I'm biting my lip since at the time it was a really bad habit I had when I was thinking really hard.
"YOU DONT!" she yelled in shock, " Oh my, well do you know how to make Mac and cheese? Fried chicken?"
Was she serious? All mental disabilities aside there had to be some kind of logic instilled in her mind. As I looked at myself up and down I responded, " I know how to make tacos...?"
she continued mumbling in disbelief as she told me that I needed to learn how to make that stuff because that was the stuff she wanted to learn how to make. I remember saying I would make a Cassette tape of Alicia Keys for her and bring it the next time I came but there was no next time. I then was transferred to a boy with severe autism whom I ended up having as my one and only client for six months. His parents where sci fi hippies who had another compulsive masturbating son that stole my biology of women's book. He lied and said he didn't take it and when everyone was gone I found it in one of his drawers with the pages of hairy vaginas stuck together. I don't think I would have stayed in that home if it wasn't for one afternoon when I took my client to his physical therapy appointment. He was rocking in a hammock when the therapist pushed him too hard and he fell out and landed face first. I started laughing because up until that point he did nothing but try to bite my ankles when I wouldn't let him wear sweatpants and a coat in ninety degree heat. He immediately stood up while crying and ran to me, sat on my lap and tucked his head under my chin while embracing me. I was in shock because he never shows any emotion or affection to anyone.
"Wow," The therapist stood above us," I've never seen that before"


He is drifting in and out. I look at his IVs and smooth away his hair. I've never touched him like that before. His eyes open and he moves his head around to look at me.
"Carrie" he pauses, " When I go will you visit my grave and leave me flowers?"
Asking yourself hard questions in life are difficult but to have them thrown into your face by someone you love seems impossible. You don't want to answer and how can you tell them that it is you who is not ready to answer it.
"Sure...but we don't need to worry about that anytime soon..okay."
he nods and goes back to sleep.

After my jog I picked up Jina and Jesse to go to the airport. We bought coffee and talked about random things and their trip that they are about to take. My dad is buried at fort snelling which is right by the airport. I bought a rose the night before to give to him. When I pulled up all I can do is look out my car window. It just seems so permanent.

"And this is where tiff is buried" he points over to her grave.
"What are those little houses?" I ask
My brother moves closer to the grave, " They are called spirit houses. That's what they believe up hear sis, that the spirit lives in that house until it is ready to leave. "
We stop talking and just look. We listen to the pow wow on the radio and I absorb as much of my nieces grave and his reservation as I can. He turns to me, " You know I still haven't been up to his grave yet." He pauses, " its just to hard."

Pounding the flower container into the frozen ground I stand by his grave and shuffle my feet for a while as though he were someone I just met. I talk about how good school is going and how deb is doing. I tell him Im doing good. When I'm back in my car I think about how weird it was that I hovered just six feet above his body. I was as close as six feet to him. It sounds weird and maybe morbid but i would like to just touch him even if it wasn't him and it was just a pile of bones.

On my way home I think about what I told him. "I'm doing good dad." and ask myself if that really is true or not. I think about all my mistakes. But instead of my self esteem lowering because of everything I've done the best side of logic bloomed instead. I've made some mistakes and I've made them over and over again sometimes. When he died I think I went on this weird quest of perfection. To be the best person I could be honest, loyal, ethical, wonderful and giving maybe par to a mother Theresa. Who can fit such high standards? and in fact when ever I proved I couldn't which I did countless number of times I was so upset at myself. When I left Jina and Jesse at the airport they told me they loved me. It made me think of all my other best friends and my family who know everything about me and still think the world of me, love me even after all my mistakes and words I've said. Its then I realized that its what humans do, they make mistakes even really big ones. Sometimes right and wrong isn't very clear.

"so yeah...I'm doing great maybe"