A Thank You Letter.

I would like to take this time to thank someone who has been on my mind recently.

I don't know your name, but thank you, my friend. Yes, you. Thank you for picking up my cell phone that I left at the movie theatre. That was so kind of you! Thank you for picking up that phone and, instead of returning it to its rightful owner, running off with it. That was so cool of you, you cool thief! Thank you for taking that phone of mine and making no effort to return it to me.

Cool thief, you are the best. You're just so cool! Instead of stealing the phone and selling it in on Craigslist, you decided to make phone calls with it. Thank you! Thank you for calling my dear father and telling him that my phone was in fact still at the theatre. Thank you for making me leave work early to go to the theatre to find out that they, in fact, did not actually have it. Yet again, cool thief--so awesomely cool of you! Thank you!

Thank you, cool thief, for continuing to call family members telling them the phone was really at the theatre and instructing them to tell me to yet again return to the theatre to get my phone. Thank you for instructing them to tell me to be really pushy in order to prove it was me. That was such a great story you made up about a lot of people coming to the theatre looking for "lost phones". Thank you, cool thief, for making me abandon my studies, leave the library and walk a mile to get to the theatre before they closed. The looks on the employees' faces were priceless! They really didn't know what to say!

Thank you for, after wasting even more of my time, calling many of my friends and leaving messages like, "Wazzup my ni**a!!!!" or "I HEART C%CK!!!". Cool thief, what would I have ever done without you? I would never have had to e-mail so many people apologizing for the mass-text involving me and my "friend" Mary Jane. Apparently according to you, she's a flamer! Baha! You, cool thief, made all of this possible. You and that wit of yours!

Thank you, cool thief, for making me not cancel my phone for multiple days, leading my sweet concerned mother to call my own job to find out if I were still alive or not. Without you, this would never have been possible! Thank you!

And lastly, cool thief, thank you for just being you. Cool thief...You are just so cool!

(Inspired by Joe.My.God)

She Danced.

After enduring nearly 14 hours of sedation, my mother lays in the ICU with countless tubes pouring out of her. Her flesh has been fattened due to the amount of liquids in her body. She feels pain in every direction. Her entire body is bloated; her face is placid white. There is not a single part of her body that is not hooked up to some tube or needle; every inch of her is being monitored.

I watch her wake. I'm here for you, I whisper. A thick tube forces its way down into her throat to provide her with oxygen; she can barely move, she can not even breathe on her own. My eyes fill with tears as I realize she is still alive. You are so strong, I barely allow the words to escape. I watch her, with all of the strength within her, lift her arm to wave. Her eyes squint; they are fixed on me, but can barely open. Her fingers are numb and feel no sensation, so I hold her hand; she can not squeeze back. I can see the pain in her eyes, but I also see tears: tears of joy, tears of renewal. Tears of the strongest woman I know.

Then, with command I know not from where she beckons, she lifts her other arm. The arm that has at least six IVs. The arm that has a heavy cast-like thing around it. And as she gradually raises her arm, she suddenly sways it to the right, then gently sways it back to the left. Now with both hands, raised barely a few inches above her chest, she moves them in a circular motion, and I can tell, even though she cannot utter a single word...she is dancing. With the ounce of energy left in her body she dances. Her transcendent joy overtakes the pain, supersedes the amount of drugs that flow through her body...and she shares with me her joy. A joy that for the rest of my life I will never forget. My mother is the only women who, after surviving one of the most difficult surgeries a surgeon can perform, would come out dancing. But she did. She didn't barely survive--she survived with inexplicable, exuberant joy. So much joy that she danced.

I cried the entire time I wrote this.

(Written May 24th, 2007)