Halloween night of 1988 Lucy began feeling the pains of labor. She had been awake for some time due to the drugs coursing through her heavily pregnant body. Regret from all she had done in the weeks previous would also start to set in. As Lucy laid in bed that night, eager to stifle back the contractions, an image appeared at the foot of her bed.
"Lucy do not fear. All will be well. She will live," the angelic figure of a woman spoke to her. My mother told me the story of this angel many times when I was young and would always say to me, "It was the only time I have ever seen anything like it, and I didn't feel afraid at all."
The figure would then vanish almost as soon as it had arrived. Despite my mothers' flippant attitude towards her drinking and drug use while she was pregnant with me, her inability to stop using had been eating away at her.
When she wasn't partying, she had been painting a nursery. She picked the theme of "The Jungle Book," and lovingly collected handmade baby blankets from thoughtful relatives. She was as excited as she was confused, so seeing the apparition that night must have been a great comfort to her, allowing her to finally sleep.
The validity of this story will remain a mystery because of the number of drugs that were in my mother's system at the time, but a part of me has always deeply wanted to believe it is true. The days and weeks that would follow seem to offer it some credit. It's a miracle that I am alive.
"More drugs! Please more drugs," my mother would beg the nursing staff several days after seeing the apparition in her room, as labor was now in full motion. My mothers' screams could be heard down the hallways of labor and delivery unit.
"No, I'm sorry Mrs. Wood, we cannot offer you anymore narcotics. You already have so much in your system that it would be dangerous to you and your baby to give you anymore," the nursing staff attempted to soothe her to little avail.
Rocky was there pacing eagerly outside the door, worried by my mother's cries. Saying aloud to himself, "Please God, let my girls be okay." Realizing that he couldn't do much standing in the hallway, he made his way down to the hospital gift shop. He grabbed some flowers and pink balloons that said, "It's a Girl" in fancy white lettering, and then headed back to the hallway.
When Rocky made his way back up from the gift shop and approached the room, the door swung open. The doctor and a team of nurses ran by him, carrying my tiny blue body and shouting, "I need a team in the NICU now!"
Shaken, Rocky shuffled into the room where my mother laid, fearing the worst, only to be met by mindless accusations, "Where did you go? Went off to score some dope while I was here having our daughter?" my mother slurred.
"No sweetheart," he desperately tried to explain, "I just went to get you some flowers and a gift for the baby." He tried to hand her the gifts he so carefully had chosen, just to have them thrown back at him. More insults thrown his way.
"You liar! You cheat! You have more drugs. Where are they? Where are they at?" Lucy demanded.
At that moment a nurse walked into the room to see what the commotion was about, and rather than continuing to try and explain his intentions to my mother who was in the throws of her drug-induced delusions, my father walked out. His heart shattered.
He went down to the car in the hospital parking lot, weeping with a broken heart for hours, not even sure if I was alive.
He returned the next day to find his wife in a better state, and his baby in an incubator, but alive. Rocky was finally able to feel a bit of relief.
"I'm sorry Rocky. Our baby is okay. Do you forgive me?" my mother asked my father as he sat in a chair in front of her, hands clasped, looking down at the floor as he often did.
"Of course I do Lucy, I just want you and our baby to be okay. Can we do better? Can we do this better for the baby and leave this partying behind us?"
They were both crying now. Both knew what they needed to do. Unaware that they would not be able to pull it off. By the time I was two weeks old my father realized that things in fact, would not get better, and instead were getting worse. He was awakened in the middle of the night by yelling in my nursery. Opening the door, he was shocked at what he would find.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Lucy stood there screaming just inches away from my newborn face.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Give me our baby! She is just an innocent baby Lucy, and she is crying because you couldn't control yourself while you were pregnant!" my dad explained, finally taking a stand to my mother.
He was met with a harsh smack to the face and more incoherent yelling from her.
"Well maybe if you would get off your ass and help me feed her or hold her sometime it wouldn't be a problem!''
"You know that I have to go to work early in the morning Lucy. Our electricity is about to get shut off again." My father said irritated.
This argument prompted Rocky to pack me up in my car seat and carry me away to his family in Hobbs. It was not safe to leave me alone with my mother while he went to work.
This break up was the first of many during Rocky and Lucys' three-year marriage. Some days Rocky would come home from work to find the entire house packed up and his wife and child gone. To complicate this already mounting situation, it would only be two months before my mother would discover that yet again, they were expecting another baby. My little sister Anna.
During her pregnancy with Anna, Lucy moved in with my father's family after he was arrested and sent to prison for felony drug possession. The shock of losing her husband to the system while she was helplessly trying to make ends meet for myself and my unborn sister was enough to keep her clean this time. At least for a while. She would go on to write my father this letter:
"Dear Rocky,
It's been difficult trying to make ends meet without you here. I am doing my best to take care of little Phoenix and our little one on the way. Beth helps me a lot with Phoenix and spends as much time with her as she can. She gave her a bath in the sink last night and Phoenix's little laughs were so cute. I know you would have loved it.
I have been eating a lot of fresh fruit and attending church every Sunday with your sisters. I really am doing my best to straighten up so that when you come home, we can get our lives together and be a real family. I can't tell you how sorry I am for all the things that have happened over the last year, but the truth is, I love you more than you know.
I'll be trying to come and visit you soon, and again, as soon as little Anna is born. I know things are tough in there, but it won't be long before we can be together again.
Por Vida, Lucy Wood "
YOU ARE READING
Phoenix Rises
Non-FictionMy Life story. How it all began, and how I learned to rise from the ashes.
