Communication

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Reflections

It’s peaceful and quiet. Just as any mother would do, I quietly peep in on James to check on him, then, silently slip out of his room.

My mind wanders back to a day over thirty years ago, when as an excited teenager, I came home from work and told my mother I had met the man I was going to marry. I still hear her laughter as she asked me what was his name and I said I didn’t know, Then, when she asked me if he was at least cute and I replied “No Mom, he’s geeky, but mom, his eyes, his smile-I’m going to marry him”. I still see everyone’s shock and dismay when two weeks later we eloped.

I remiss about how as two young teenagers we both continued to go to school, work and yes, had our own place, paid our own bills. Too young to understand what hardships we were going through, just content to be together. I smile as I remember graduation day, when he and I, husband and wife, expecting our first child, graduated together.

The years flew by quickly and we had two more children. Still, we remained together. Not only were we husband and wife, but best friends. Yes, we fought, we argued many times, but, always made up and slept wrapped in each other arms.

My mind leaps a few years ahead. To the day, unknown to us, disaster silently struck our family. He was a mechanic and was working on a truck for Johnnie. Johnnie was an alcoholic and always had his beer with him. That day, he kept pressuring James to have a beer with him. Finally, James caved in and that was the last time of sobriety for many years. I cannot help but wonder what if I had stepped in, spoken up and told Johnnie to back off. However, it is too late for regrets now. Two years later, after fourteen years of marriage James and I divorced.

I remember with horror how I came home from Christmas shopping, excited because I had found a child’s guitar for my son, only to discover that his dad had kidnapped him. The seven years of aching and weeping. The anger and resentment that took a deep hold within me. I remember the day my son called my job, searching for me, hoping I had stayed at the same place. The tears of relief and joy.

My mind switches to years later when I watched how alcohol was destroying him. The day it actually hit me, that it was an uncontrollable disease that needed a cure, the poem, I wrote. Even now, I have it in my files.


James

James leaned his head on the table in despair
His hands trembled, his body shook
Sweat pored out his glands
Like water in a brook

This disease took everything from him
It left nothing-had taken it all
Yet, even though he cursed it
He couldn’t escape the alcohol

Some would look at him with pity
Others showed outright contempt
They couldn’t understand alcoholism
And what the disease meant

Although he knew what it had done
He couldn’t seem to put the bottle down
He had attempted so many times before
But, the alcohol always won

It had destroyed his family,
Cost him his children and wife
Ravaged his body and his mind
And soon would cost him his life

At one time James was a different man
A man with laughter and a smile in his eyes
But as the disease increased in strength
His inner spirit began to die

In the memory of the man he once was
I beg for public awareness and understanding
That this disease is just that-a disease
It takes control-it’s so demanding

And I appeal to those with the knowledge,
The ability and the skill
To somehow find a cure
Before another life it steals

As for James, I watch him spend his last days
In a world where reality has been lost somewhere
And I cry for him and the outcome
For him and all the other “James” out there

Kathleen Ann Shelton


Again my mind switches to the day I made the promise to care for him and how I didn’t expect to be called upon to keep it. Yet, in the end, was and because of it, was healed of my own anger and bitterness towards him. (A Promise Kept)

I see him as he is now. Like a child. His mind is lost somewhere between childhood and manhood. But, he is happy and delightful. How I enjoy his company, how I get frustrated with him, and how I would not change him being here.

Self pity sometimes creeps in when I get lonely, when I ache for a companion, yet, know that this is not to be. Then I hold him next to me, comforting him, just giving him the needed touch, and my maternal instincts rise sharply. Strange as it may seem, now, he has become as one of my children. I’ve become protective of him like a mother hen.

I see him struggling to accomplish simple tasks, such as tying his own shoes. The frustration he encounters because he is yet unable to button his own jeans-his hands and fingers won’t cooperate. Yet, I see the determination he has to push beyond his physical limitations. How, like a baby, he crawls everywhere, pulls himself up I also see the pride that he takes in every little accomplishment. I can still see his face, the joy and dignity restored when diapers were no longer needed. I also recognize the pride that I have in him.

I reflect upon the irony of life. How it came to be that once he was my husband, is the father of my children, and yet now, he is my child.

Kathleen Ann Shelton

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