426: Fade to Black

426: Fades to Black

While in a coma, I dreamt about things that had happened on this date throughout my life; although I didn’t know it was a dream, it looked like a movie in vivid colors.

My mother was 5’2“tall, 110 lbs., soaking wet, and carried a “Dirty Harry” .38-caliber revolver. I remember the day she picked it up from the gun shop. I was only 12; she said, “I’d rather have it and never need it than need it and not have it.” All I could think was that it was too heavy for her little body. I saw her put the fear of God in Cousin Lisa’s first husband with “Old Betsy,” and made him crawl like a crab backward, begging for his life. She vowed to put a bullet in his forehead if he ever lifted a hand toward her again.

Barbara Lee Walker went hard for those who meant something to her. Maybe I didn’t understand that when I was young, but I do now. I left home when I was pregnant with my oldest, which I still think was the right thing to do at the time.

My pregnancy reminded her of the son that she lost before adopting me, and I think that she had never dealt with that loss. She eventually realized that I was not coming back; who would after being afraid of an attempt on their life.

I had to sink or swim on my own. The choices she had given me were not the way to get through my situation, and I decided to keep my child, which caused a rift between us. I now know that I put a kink in her plan for me and brought back painful memories for her; back in the 60s, an abortion wasn’t allowed, even for a miscarriage. Her only pregnancy ended in a sixth-month baby’s failure to thrive situation, and the doctor would have made her carry it until her body finally expelled the deceased baby. I can’t imagine that feeling of carrying a baby boy for another 3-4 months and knowing that he will never wiggle, whimper, or cry in his parents' arms.

I’m haunted by the lasting memories that came on April 26, 1982, the 116th day of the year, and I added to my list of statistics:

Black

Female

Teenage girl

Pregnant and

Homeless.

That Monday morning when I left home, I still didn’t have any idea where I would sleep that night; I just knew it couldn’t be in my own bed. I woke up from a nightmare four times that Sunday night. I bounced around for the next eight months from that day until the day I gave birth on December 10th in four different foster care situations, not knowing what I had; I didn’t know what “emancipated minor” meant.

For the next two years, I suffered from abdominal pain, trying to get through high school and raising my son by myself. It was hard to do the best for my son without a job or a stable livelihood, and I made the tough decision to give him to his father’s mom until I could do better. I begged my social worker for a placement in a facility for women and their kids, but she had two faces and no spine to stand up for me against the one behind all of my problems… my mother!

Not knowing what I know now, I just allowed things to happen after my father died in 1983. The wind was sucked out of my sail, and again, being uninformed, I left funds available to me go unclaimed until I moved to Charlottesville two days before my seventh birthday. I received a new counselor who helped me get the social security stuff straight, and I was able to move after completing my program in the C.A.G.E.S., which stood for Community Action Group Systems; I added the “E.” because they were a mini prison for some of the residents. It was a house with twelve girls from 13 to 18, and another one down the block for boys in the same age group.

When I came home to visit for the Easter break in April 1984, I arrived in Emporia on Thursday evening and helped my mom record the mileage between stops on her school bus routes. I felt sick, went into the house, and lay down on the couch at my son’s grandparents’ place. Ten minutes later, I was throwing up green liquid, and it was like Linda Blair in the movie. I was admitted to Greensville Memorial Hospital for tests and pain management and had my Gallbladder removed on the 26th.

I never put it together until I started writing about my mom’s death, many times, 426 had already been a key date in my life, but it was also the first time my mom had a heart attack on the way to high school the following year.

Hey, I realize my last story was a number also, but it is like that sometimes. It was 31 years ago today that I buried my mother. As rocky as our relationship was during my teens, I know that I miss her. I also know that she has to be in Heaven since April 26, 1995, and that one of the Angels assigned to protect me is her.

I’m the one who has taken up the protector's role after my mom got sick, and my cousin’s husband thought that a marriage certificate gave him the right to beat her, again since mom was gone now; he forgot that Lisa was the closest thing to a sister I had; until I rolled up to the trailer in a car he didn’t know, carrying Betsy and he heard the click of the chamber, felt the chill of the barrel on the back of his neck…All I said was: " Are you leaving or dying today?” The sheriff’s car parked behind me as soon as I finished that statement.

The very night after I watched them lower the casket of the person I knew had my back, my last protector… the guy that stood in her hospital room the weekend prior, vowing never to hurt me, became someone I didn’t know. He had never lifted a hand in anger towards me ever before, but because I chose to give the guns in my mother’s house to my oldest son’s father, he got violent, which assured me that I had done the right thing. I couldn’t get his stupid butt back to Charlottesville and out of my life fast enough.

I had forgotten about the 426 for years until I was hospitalized after my car accident on March 17, 1998. On April 26, I took my two youngest sons to see Godzilla, the last thing I needed to do to complete my required program before going to WWRC.

The one that stands out in my head the most powerful of all that happened on April 26, 2016, when I was so sick that I don’t remember the original incident, but I do remember that it would occur anytime without warning; my throat would feel like I was choking. No matter how much I told my doctor what I was experiencing, they had to witness it for themselves; finally, I was already in the hospital with a very serious UTI. During lunch on April 25th, I had finished eating and was talking to the nurse who had fed me, when I suddenly started to gasp for air. They rushed me to CT and found out that my thyroid was super huge for its size and needed to be removed immediately.

A team of doctors, nurses, and support staff was called together to proceed with the surgery on the 26th. To do the operation at 9:00 a.m., they only needed my consent. I’ve been told I refused, and they gave my OR slot to the next patient in need of an operation. Unfortunately, I heard that he died on the table because the oxygen wasn’t working.

Also, my primary physician had to talk me into having the procedure done on the 27th. I must have permitted the surgery because the story continues with the team losing me twice on the table. When asked, every response to the question was " What should we do? My family, caregivers, and my doctor kept saying, “Bring her back to us, and we will deal with the rest after that.”

I remained in a coma and needed to have the tube that was breathing for me for that whole month, and I woke up three days before Memorial Day. I was restrained and confused when I awoke. Within three days, I was weaned from the breathing machine, and I was released from my restraints later on the first day, when they were reassured that I understood all that I had survived since April 26, 1995, until surgery day, April 27, 2016.