MOTHER'S DAY

MY BROTHER RAZ

One Mother's Day especially sticks out to me. Mom was in Duke Hospital when I was in the 7th grade. She had this mysterious illness which took her to within a whisper of death. She had a high fever and did not respond to anything. In a semi coma, eventually the docs determined she had been bitten by a Black Widow Spider. She was very sick but once they began treating her to rid herself of the poison, she began a slow recovery. 

I went to live with my older brother, Raz,  who was a High School coach. It was not the greatest year of my life. We were tobacco farmers. I went from having no structure to not bring able to breathe. As I think of that year, I remember one positive thing about it: Mother's Day and Raz and I went to visit Mom in the hospital. Just us. It was great. We laughed and carried on. My brother loved comics  and didn't want anybody knowing he was reading them. We stopped on the way back and bought every single different comic that the drugstore had and read them all--a sweet Mother's Day memory.