MARROW: The Crimson Odyssey

Chapter Three: This Isn't Me

CHAPTER THREE 

This Isn't Me 

Three Years Prior

It felt like I hadn't seen my mother in years, but in reality it was only a few days. Every time I went to see her I would leave the hospital trying to make myself forget. I remember wanting to cry, but I wouldn't. Back then I was cold, but to my family I was just lukewarm. I would take a bullet for them if need be, but I usually tried my best to avoid things like "I love you" or "Come give me a hug" or anything too affectionate. What I wouldn't give to remember all of that now, every detail and go out of my way to say those words, to give those hugs...the embrace that would turn my lukewarm into a bright, loving, blistering boil...to go every which way around the pain and just accept the love. I mean I accepted it I suppose; I just didn't always mirror it. 

I assume the reason that is...is because I used to say it all the time. I used to say it so much to the point where I just didn't mean it anymore. I realized that 14 was absolutely too young to say something like that. If I just said "I love you" to anyone and everyone it would just be another phrase, another word...love. How awful that such a remarkable thing can be spoiled so easily. 

Usually when I went to visit her I would sit in a corner. It was hard enough to step into a hospital, for the reason that I absolutely hated them, hated doctors, needles, anything that had to do with anything medical. It just scared me to no end. The idea of someone injecting me with something, or putting me under anesthesia made me shake. I hated ambulances, I hated medical doctors, dentists, pediatricians, dermatologists, everything related to the field. I could never ever express that enough. 

John was so much braver than I was. He saw straight through all of mom's needles and wires. Where I felt as if when I hugged her, one of them would come out or I'd squeeze one that would restrict the flow of some medicine she needed. Whenever I looked it was if she had a million of them all around, there was something for everything. One for the pain, one to help her sleep, one to give her vitamins, one to check her pulse, one to check her temperature...and John would come right in, hug her, and they'd pray together like John used to pray over me. I didn't always understand prayer. I mean I get that's how you contact God, but to me it seemed like it was just putting your hands together and talking to yourself. John and my mom were just so adamant about it. If God was so great then why did she have cancer? Why did I get in that accident? Why didn't I know any of my family outside of them? If he was so merciful then why did things like this happen? Why does the world continue to spin as cruelty, malevolence, and an overwhelming triviality circle our lives every single day? I just didn't understand the appeal to an outside force if one doesn't seem to be given. 

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"But it does, Jake" John would always tell me. "You may not know it but he always works in us, around us, everywhere we walk. You just gotta know where to look; you just have to stop, calm yourself, and listen. He speaks soft but with the power of a cannonball." John wasn't necessarily optimistic, but it sure seemed like that sometimes with the way he spoke about faith. 

"Jacob, sweetie, please come here, it's like you're on the other side of the world over there." She would wave at me with her weak hands, her voice so soft. I would just rub my arms and think "that's kind of the point. I don't want to do anything stupid and accidentally kill you." But she wouldn't care. Eventually during a visit I would be persuaded to come give her a hug and hold her hand as she and John prayed. One thing I always did say with them, because I found it actually intriguing to say at the end of their prayers was after one of them said. 

"And all of God's people said in Jesus's name we pray," 

"Amen." They didn't always end their prayers with that specific sentence, sometimes it would just be 'In Jesus's name we pray' and then I'd say with them 'Amen', but I always loved that about prayer. I found comfort in the word. Maybe that's why I still had some belief in him, in God; I just wish I had as strong of faith as my family. There was always something that always seemed to occur when we were there; a series of questions. The same ones every time she would ask the nurse.