of hard luck and the kindness of strangers

I left her in good hands. Don was there, of course, and Dr. V had just stopped in for a chat. Just give your body some time to regenerate the bone marrow, and we’ll keep an eye on you for any signs of infection. Dr. V reassured us just by his presence. Again, the care at Baptist hospital has been such a surprise. It’s a well oiled machine that is greater than the sum of its individual parts; Gestalt as Berliners would profess. And although she is in the best place, she isn’t in the best of shape.

Her eyelids have a discolored into a sickly reddish brown and her eyes have sunken into their sockets. Her skin is still blotchy from the rash and her chest still has red itchy bumps. We still cry a lot when we look at each other, but our looks are longer, deeper and fulfilling. She’s my mother and I appreciate her more every day even if she looks like an extra on the set of a horror movie… make that a comedy horror flick – she still likes to make us laugh.

Traffic on the Turnpike wasn’t bad at 7pm. Well, not bad for Miami, and well “bad traffic” is a relative term. Bad traffic in Key West is getting stuck behind a Conch Tour Train, creeping along for blocks at a snail’s pace. Miami traffic is just bad all the time. But I love Miami and South Beach and the Art Deco architecture, and the international cultural flair. So let the traffic be the traffic with all the Maseratis and Mercedes and Lamborghinis – what a sight!

I didn’t pretend I was driving one of those exotics, but I did gun it in a no passing zone on Ramrod Key. Twenty-eight miles from home, 10:30pm and all I wanted to do was drive the posted speed limit. Not under, not over, just lemme do 45 mph and lemme get home. Earlier in the evening an aggressive driver got under my skin so I let him pass. He must have failed Courtesy 101 – the horn and middle finger was not very nice. Whatever. So when it was my turn to be a jerk, at least I was graceful in passing the guy in front of me. Kenny Roberts in the corkscrew turn at Laguna Seca, but I was going much slower. It was a beautiful sweeper and no headlights in sight. The problem was I chicaned a double yellow line. No sooner had I actually got up to the posted speed limit that strobe of "stupidom" forced me to the side of US 1.

Ah, the red and blue bubble gum lights flashing to the world “hey look everyone, here’s another idiot.” You know the neon diner sign that reads “Eat At Joes”? Yeah well my sign reads, “I’m a Dumb Ass.” Damn, this is all I need right now; more crap on my plate. My hands were on the steering wheel and all fingers were spread apart as the deputy approached. Try that next time and you’ll get more respect from the officer – or just cry a lot. I did both. Thank goodness my driving record was clean because the deputy let me off without a citation. Her father was going thru cancer treatment as well and she had sympathy for my situation. Maybe she saw herself and felt guilty that she wasn’t by her loved-one’s side, braving thru the nightmare with him. Maybe she had pity on me because she knows how incredibly painful it is to see a parent suffer, or to feel the fear of the unknown. Or perhaps it was just a little fairy dust sprinkled overhead and a chance to cash in my karmic chips for a lucky break. I dunno what or who or why, but the kindness of a stranger overshadowed my misery, and it was yet another lesson presented to me to share with you. The moral of this story is to just take one day at a time; you'll get to where you are suppose to be soon enough.