Calling

It was a long phone cord. The vast linoleum surface between my mother and my three year old frame seemed but a tricycle turn in length. The sink was not that far.
But it tasted too good.
A girl with a cold cannot be expected to be kept waiting. Orange syrup- just enough of a tart kick to entice young tastebuds- the elixir of the weak? Could I have been such an addict at three? Perhaps not, though I fear the Triaminic may have been replaced later in life with cigarettes...
I swear that cord could've made it to the sink and back twice over. It was 10am. The deal was I got my fix at 6am, 10am, 2pm and 6pm- just in time for bed. Somehow, though, as I tell this story on nearly ever second date, I seem to have taken my mother's response to my insistent pleas as indicative of something more-- as the protocol? Well, I don't want to jump into that moving vehicle just yet. It would only take me to Florida and I hate Florida more than most things in this world.
My mother grew up in BocaRaton- in Bible Town to be exact. Her father was the minister at bible town and her mother was the prima donna of the church choir- leading it, accompanying it, singing in it and sharing her sweet melodious voice with every ear that passed through the pseudo-cult venue. Mom was a lifeguard at the pool one summer and while she was working a boy drowned. I wonder though, did she look through the wave-ridden waters and wonder how life could be so fleeting or did she hide behind the hedge waiting to forget that she could have jumped?
She always told me that she loved living in Bible Town- the community, her friends, the church...but I don't think she was being honest. I think she would've loved to live in Miami, but she didn't want to disappoint her parents by expressing something so contrary to their wishes for her. I could be wrong, you know- I wasn't here yet.
Somedays I think that it was good for her and sometimes I wish that my mom would've been born in England. Imagine the dual citizenship possibilities! Oh- to be a Londoner. Of course my name would probably be Millie or Jane or something...and I rather like being Suzanne. A year ago I drove my mother through her old home town. We stopped in at my grandfather's house where he lives with his new (spring chicken) wife Janet. Grandpa has been predicting his death since I can remember him. I think he was about 60 in my earliest memories, but he was ready for the Lord to take him home even then.
My grandfather is a walking miracle. Not in the ways that some people are- surviving a survivorless plane crash, walking through fire with a small child and the whooping cough- but in a youcantpossiblybealive way. Ira has had two back surgeries, two hip replacements, one knee replacement, three pacemakers, four open heart surgeries...and hes' been a diabetic all his life. Honestly, sometimes when he calls us at 9 in the morning to come over and say goodbye I really think he's going to go. But he hasn't yet.
I speak so irreverently of a man who I have a great deal of respect for- but it is rooted entirely out of love. I know that one day he'll be gone and I may read this and think sadly of how little I appreciated him, but I firmly believe that his presence in six lines of this story prove that he was much more amazing than I could possibly convey in any coy story that I could conjure. Soon enough I will be in Florida again, collecting things from my aunt's garage that once belonged to Ira that I can take home on the plane with me to commemorate his presence in my life. Just like Viola's silver platter and butter dish, I'm sure they will sit on my bottom shelf until I finally forget enough to throw them away or send them back to Bible Town as relic antiques. Will it be a watch this time? An autographed photo? His collection of NFL memorabilia? Well, he may not like me that much...
It was probably the fall because I remember the leaves outside of the window of that huge van. It was crisp and sunny and Bay City couldn't have looked finer...well, maybe- if I wasn't stuck in the back of our neighbor's van with my mother shaking incessantly next to me as she held me like I might die soon. I knew I wasn't going to die. It tasted to good to be lethal.
Barbara was her name. She was a basket weaver and my mother was always jealous that her baskets turned out better than her own on every joint basket weaving occasion (though all above water). She had a van, and for some reason my mother couldn't just drive me herself- afraid that if she was driving and I was riding without her tight grip around me I might drink more orange goodness or die in the passenger seat.
We sat in the back of the 7 passenger van (with a blue cloth...velvet perhaps? interior).
I knew that my father would be there. A rare occasion, he actually left work to come to the hospital and see me. Granted, his main purpose was to scare me in to compliance, but he came all the same- a rarity in those days. I was so excited that he would leave work for me...I found it difficult to believe.
Maroon and Pink are such terrible colors. Throw them into a hospital on the bodies of several overweight nurses and surround them with the blah tile and cartooned wallpaper of the children's ward and you've got a serious eyesore. The bright light at the end of the hallway, the entrance to the emergency room I assume, streamed down the hall so that I could see it through the door to my room. I had no idea why I had to be there. Did they not understand the strength of my stomach? I have always had my father's stomach, the type that could take anything and not be ruffled. God did bless me in someways.
Though I was compliant with the nurses, when they told me that I needed to drink charcoal I thought they were joking. "If you're trying to make that stuff sound better than it really is, telling me it's charcoal is really not going to help, " I thought to myself as I skeptically scrutinized the nurse's face for a wink of complicity. It never came, and I found myself sipping on a beaker full of the stuff. They were smart. If you ever need someone to upchuck just mash up last night's barbeque coals and serve it on the rocks with a splash of soda water- its the surest thing I know in the world.
My father, however, was not so certain. While I whined about drinking something that was entirely inhuman my dad waltzed in (leaving his patience and sympathy at the door), grabbed a rather large tube off the wall (still wrapped in plastic) and threatened to have the nurse shove this thing down my throat if I didn't start throwing up quickly.