When I was nine years old, my mother and I were in a head-on car collision. I survived and she died. There’s still some speculation around her death. Was her car over the line? Was she really reaching over into the passenger seat? Was she going too fast? I don’t know and I’ll never know and that really doesn’t bother me.

For two weeks, I was in the hospital and every night, my father told me she was sleeping. I can understand how much it must have hurt him to hear me ask how she was every night but not be able to tell me because it might halt my recovery.

That first night, I needed an emergency blood transfusion. They called my father to to tell him and he said he would be on his way. They said no. They said I needed it right then.

I died on the operating table. But I came back. With a vengeance.

I saw no light. I saw no pearly gates. I didn’t see anything to confirm that there’s an afterlife and that I’m going to be okay. The only light I saw was right after the accident, when I woke up and there were tree branches above my head. I thought I was at the playground of my school except there was a man standing above me. He was glowing and white and I said everything was going to be fine. But I didn’t believe him because after he said that, he ripped my shirt open. It was my favorite shirt. The next thing I knew, I was being carried into the back of an ambulance on a gurney and after what felt like a few minutes I was being wheeled out into an emergency room. I was placed on a table with a bright light that just got brighter as they put me under. Put me over. Over and out.

My mother died and I lived. This is something I question every day.

I don’t remember waking up after that. I only remember bits and pieces. Having a TV placed in front of my face because I didn’t have glasses. Having to suck on sponges because I wasn’t allowed water. Clinging to my bedsheets as the guy on the other side of the room that seemed like a mile away pulled on my catheter to take it out.

I was moved up several floors and it was a cause for celebration. I was doing alright. I was doing better.

Hey dad, how is mom? You just saw her? She’s sleeping.

They took x-rays. Many x-rays. The drinks they gave me to make my bones glow didn’t taste anything like vanilla shakes like they said they would. I was given a cat scan but it didn’t bother me. I hear people say they’re afraid of them because it feels like being in a coffin but I wasn’t bothered. It was supposed to rain that night and I had a room to myself and there was a Beavis & Butthead marathon on all night.

I was given presents every day from people I didn’t know and never kept in touch with afterwards. Toys and books and comics. My best friend gave me an issue of Sonic the Hedgehog #100. Special gold cover. He knew I liked drawing Sonic so he gave me a pad of paper too.

Do you want to see my scars? They cut open my stomach and took out my spleen and fixed my liver. It’s really cool. It doesn’t hurt much.

How’s my mom? Oh. Still sleeping? She sleeps a lot now.

Something must have gone wrong the day I was meant to leave the hospital because my dad never came to pick me up. He called and said he was coming in the afternoon. I told him to get me a Snickers. He never came. For some reason, I couldn’t leave. I was mad at him that night.

The next day, my whole family was there. My father. My sister. My brother. My brother is afraid of elevators but even he rode one up to see me.

But where’s mom? Oh.

Oh.

Sometimes it hits me that my mother is gone. I’ll be driving or talking to someone or watching TV and it feels like a bucket of water thrown on my face. Bam. Dead. She’s dead. I have no problem with this. I feel no sadness or remorse that my mother is gone. That she’s gone right now. I can deal with that.

What hurts the most is she’s not going to be back tomorrow. She won’t be back the next day. She’s gone. I can deal with her not being here for me right now because that’s just how things are. People aren’t always there for you because they can’t always be there for you no matter what you promise anybody.

This very second, my brother-in-law is in jail and my sister and her three kids are living in a campgrounds waiting to go to court tomorrow to get their house back. I want to be there for them but I can’t. Because I don’t want to. Because sometimes you have to go through things on your own or you will always depend on somebody. This is a lesson I’m still learning.

The day I got out of the hospital, my mother was already dead and buried. Her funeral happened and people said goodbye and paid their last respects and I didn’t even know she was gone. This is something I still am hurt by. I’m mad at my father for not telling me. I’m mad at myself for watching TV and drawing Sonic when I should have been saying goodbye.

I don’t believe in God and I don’t believe in Heaven. Not anymore. I don’t believe there’s an afterlife or reincarnation or anything. When you’re dead, you die. That’s it. Poof. Like magic. My mother is worm food and that’s what’s going to happen to me so I should make the most of it while I’m still around. I’m not going to meet up with her in the future and that hurts. I can’t take back what happened, I just have to deal with it.

She died so that I could live. Or some other crap like that.

I don’t have any grand tradition on this day. I don’t visit my mother’s grave because it’s in another state. I don’t talk to my family about her because that’s just not something we do. But I’m still thankful. Everyday I’m thankful.

Happy Mother’s Day.