Oh Blog It All

She was driving, I was content to be a passenger.

“Why do you do it, keep taking him back I mean?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me, not right away. Then we stopped at a robot and she pointed to a man sitting on the pavement, hunched over, his rags-as-clothes barely covering his skeletal frame. Though the sun was shining the day was cold. I pulled my jacket closer around me.

“See that man”, she said, “that could be my boy one day if I don’t take care of him”.

“He’s an addict, Sally, a drug addict, you’ve had him in rehab four times and every single time he comes out he goes straight back to the drugs”.

“I don’t want my boy to become that man sitting over there” she said pointing again to the man on the pavement.

The light changed to green and we pulled off.

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe that is the path your son is meant to walk”.

The car screeched to a halt and I was very glad that I was wearing my seat belt.

“If he walks that path then it means that I have failed, I’m his mother, I can’t fail, not now, not ever!”

“But one day you won’t be here anymore Sally, one day you’re coming home, to us. One day your boy will be on his own, walking his own path. I can’t change that and neither can you”

“Well as long as I have breath in my body I’ll keep protecting my boy, taking care of him, not failing him”

We were still stopped in the middle of the road and so you really could not blame the truck driver for what happened. He came round a bend and there was this car and he braked as hard as he could.

Mere moments and a crowd had formed around the ugly scene. Then the emergency services were there. I watched, just another face in the crowd, as the fire brigade worked their jaws of life to extract what was left of Sally’s body.

Long after the wrecked car had been removed and traffic was flowing again I was still standing there, waiting. I didn’t see her arrive but felt her hand touch my arm.

“Who will take care of my boy now?”she asked.

“He takes care of all of us. He will take care of your boy. Come Sally, let’s go home. He’s waiting”.