This is an amazing story, really.  I had been writing this for a few days.  I had planned on Mama still being with us when this would be posted.  Well, she’s not.  But I think this is important.  I remember when my dad’s mom was fighting for her life in 1975.  She was in a hospital in North Carolina.  And I was with her.  My dad was in Jacksonville, Florida.  He flew to his mom’s bedside.  I picked him up at the airport.  I was with my dad when his mom died.  And I saw the man cry for the first time ever.

Here’s “Heart.”

HEART

Living this way has served me well, I suppose.  At the same time, it has done me in.  Many times.  It has caused folks to call me irresponsible, unproductive, selfish, even an eternal college kid.  It has caused me to totally misread real and responsible relationship issues.  Where notions of boundless love filled my thoughts, most often reality and practicality struck my notions down.  And they fell hard.  And the monetary costs of living this way have often been devastating.

I was basketballer in high school.  I was fair.  I started my senior year in high school.  And I worked very hard.  But I was motivated back then.  I wanted to play basketball for the University of North Carolina.  That was my motivation.  Carolina was where my heart took me way the hell back then.  I received recruiting letters from Brown University and Berry College in Rome, Georgia, asking me to apply to their schools and to try out for their teams.  And basketball has been a passion of mine since age 14.  I suppose there was a possibility of sorts that I could have eventually played in the NBA, but I would have had to play college ball.  I didn’t want to play college ball.  My heart and I wanted to play Carolina ball.  So that’s the path I chose.  I didn’t make the team.  But I followed my heart.  And I tried.

When my child came along, my career was well on its way.  I was doing very well.  My work was being acknowledged.  Folks were paying fairly good money for my talent and for me to follow my new passion.  But when my heart found its way into my son’s world, the work and career suffered.  And I really didn’t care.  All I cared about was being a dad.  When there were baskets to be shot or trips to be made with my son or school plays to attend to watch him do his best, I was the first to ignore business phone calls and cancel business meetings.  I was hardly the responsible and productive adult I should I have been, I suppose.

Lost work, overspending and mortgage foreclosures later, my heart still seemed to want to follow its own path.  Doing free work for those who needed me to.  Ignoring work in favor of friends who maybe needed me a time or two.  That heart thing kind of adds up some.  But each time it was worth it.  I did the right things.  My belief has been for some time now that I will likely die broke.  But that my heart will be forever alive.

Until recently.  Lately, I just want to survive and do better. I am now working two regular jobs that take up most of my time.  And I am still involved in the video production world, my chosen profession.  And in writing.  These days, I am damned determined to make it and to become the non-eternal-college-kid.  This time of my life truly is all about me.  And it’s about damned time, right?

But something happened last Tuesday.  That day, I talked with my sister who has been caring for my ailing mom for years.  The news was not good.  Everything is working against the poor old woman.  And as hard as she and my sister are fighting, Mama’s days aren’t long for this world.  I know this.  My heart has wanted to be with her and with my sister for the longest time.  But the newfound responsible me kept insisting that I need to be productive - that I need to continue my work and make myself strong.  If I were to go see my mom on what may very well be her final days, I would lose work and hundreds of dollars, and put off my work responsibilities onto others who don’t even know my mom.  Damn it.  I was bound to do the responsible thing.  This is MY time.

But my sister told me something that night.  She told me that she had been saying to Mama, “David is trying to come home to see you.”  Mama is drugged and worn out.  Her responses to my sister may only be imagined ones.  But my sister told me that she responded to those words.  It may have been nothing more than an eyebrow twitch.  But she responded.

So, do I follow my heart and go see my mom, or do I behave responsibly and work and make money?  I sought the advice of some good and solid friends.  I got some good advice on both sides of the question.  But ultimately my decision came down to this.  I have never given a damn about money, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.  Why in the hell would I desert my heart when it comes to my mom and her lifeline – my sister?

So, I garnered the support of my employers and made the decision to make the quick trip.  I called my son to tell him what was going on, hoping all the time that he would insist on calling in sick at his work and join me on my trip.  He told me that he had the same two days off.

I simply said to him, “Please go with me.”  His heart spoke volumes.  “Of course I will,” he said.  I had just enough money to make it to my mom’s hospital.  I had no clue as to how he and I would get back home.  All I knew was that we had to go.  

I picked up my son at his place around 10am last Wednesday.  Almost as soon as he got into the car, he kind of teared up and told me how his mom-in-law-to-be gave him money to help us on the trip.  This was meant to be.  There are others with heart as well.  Many of them.

We made the trip.  And we saw my mom.  Things are bad, and the nurses say that she is unresponsive. Over and over they say that.  But for a couple of hours last Wednesday night and again Thursday morning, the woman spoke to my son and me.  It was nothing more than an opening of an eye or two or a raising of an eyebrow, but she spoke to us when we told her that we were there and that we loved her.  

That woman is living by her heart.  She has to.  That’s all that’s working right for her these days.  She has lived by her heart most of her long days.  And she is dying broke.  But for the life of me, I can’t imagine living and dying any other way.  For her.  Or for me.

So, to my mom:  Thanks for showing me how to live with my heart.

And to me:  Party on, college boy.  This is who you are.  Heart and all.

And there’s more.  Click HERE for “The Old Grad” on Lunacy.  It’s all about heart, really.  Everything is.