My hands were weak and shaking, but I managed to hold the pocket mirror still enough to see the massive red pimple on my chin. It was a ridiculous surprise to see it flourishing there since I was 29 years old, and I’d never had a blemish in my life.

I sighed in disgust and threw the small mirror to the foot of the plush bed where my mother’s old Cocker Spaniel startled from his sleep and yawned while looking at me with bored eyes.

“I’m sorry my death bores you, Biscuit,” I feebly kicked at him through the sea of down feather blankets as he wobbled off of the bed and left me there alone.

“I’ll be buried with a zit. Won’t that look lovely?” I groaned as I turned onto my side and embraced my pillow.

I was ready to go.

I’d grown tired of lying in the poster bed in my childhood home, counting the yellow daisies on the faded wallpaper. I was exhausted at the vomiting and the pain. I was emotionally drained at witnessing tears stream down my mother’s cheeks as she fed me soup and stroked my hand. I’d accepted the cancer as it burned through my body, and I was ready to go.

I had done all that I needed to do in this life. I had only been here for 29 years, but it had been plenty of time.

I’d been spoiled every Christmas, and I’d licked the chocolate from the spoon. I’d taken a Box turtle to show and tell, and I’d twirled batons. I’d made friends and memories. I’d pulled the fire alarm on a dare. I had passed English tests, and I had failed Math tests. I’d experienced college and suffered through the embarrassment of a toga falling to my feet in a crowded room.

I’d traveled the world. I’d snapped pictures of historical buildings and wide rivers that sliced through grassy green knolls. I’d gotten food poisoning in Palermo and dry heaved on cobblestone streets.

I’d buried two dogs, and I’d wept over their paw print-shaped grave markers beneath the Elm trees at the back of the lawn. I’d grieved at funerals as my loved ones rested in caskets in black suits and Sunday dresses. I’d buried myself beneath blankets while I sobbed and searched for a reason to get out of bed.

I’d pushed through the pain and learned to smile again. I’d prayed and I’d praised. I had danced in the rain, and I had run through an Alabama field of cattails on a September afternoon.

I’d even met a boy and fallen in love. And I’d learned what “irreconcilable differences” meant as I walked out of a courtroom with nothing to my name but a meaningless band of gold, a stained couch and a relic rear-projection television with horrible reception.

I had done all that I needed to do in this life.

I was ready to go.

There were no loose ends to tie. My family members knew the love that I stowed for them, and I’d thanked them for their hours of care and their endless prayers.

I’d filled a purple paisley journal with stories of my childhood and words of advice for my nieces and nephews.

I’d made peace with my ex-husband. I’d forgiven him of his wrongs, and he’d forgiven me of mine. And I’d told his new bride that she had a big bottom and a bulbous nose.

And I’d finally gotten my first pimple.

I was ready to go.

I closed my eyes so tightly that my entire face was wrinkled, and I smothered my nose, my mouth and the zit with the large eyelet pillow. I wanted to hold my breath until I woke in that beautiful place. I had loved ones waiting for me there. I wanted to wake among God and gold and glory. That’s where I wanted to be.

I removed the pillow and gasped for air. Death hadn’t took. The suffocation attempt had only left me nauseated and fragile. I opened my eyes to count another yellow daisy on the wallpaper and discover Biscuit peering up at me from the floor with a frustrated look on his face.

“I’m still here, Biscuit. Sorry to disappoint you!” I shouted as I softly tossed the pillow at the yellow dog. He sniffed the pillowcase and returned to the hallway.

This was my mother’s fault. God always answered her prayers. My brother came home safely from Iraq. My nephew didn’t break his leg when he fell from the Mulberry tree. My aunt recovered from her hip replacement. I hadn’t married that Jameson kid with his nose ring and rap sheet. God always answered her prayers.

She prayed that I’d stay alive, but she wouldn’t allow herself to pray for my peace. If she prayed for me to let go, then the Good Lord just might call me on Home, and she couldn’t bear to lose me the same way that she lost her mother so many years before. She wasn’t going to let cancer win this time.

“Don’t pray for me anymore, Mama. I’m ready to go,” I had retched into the toilet earlier that muggy August morning, as the zit protruded from my chin and pain surged through my body.

She held my hair in her hands, washed my face with a rag, and she quietly prayed over the sound of my moans.

I sat up in the bed as sweat formed on my brow and vomit threatened to escape my lips. She entered the daisy papered room with the lunch tray. It was topped with another bowl of soup and her tattered Bible.

“How are you feeling now?” she asked as she sat at my feet and positioned the tray over my knees.

“Mama,” I pushed the server as noodles spilled from the bowl, “I can’t eat.”

“You have to eat, dear,” she forced the warm soup to my lips.

“No,” I slowly shook my head. “I can’t.”

Sadness covered her face as she sat the spoon in the burgundy colored dish.

“We should read Scripture,” she reached for her Bible.

“Mother,” I coughed. “I know that Book word for word, and I know where I’m going when I die. I don’t want to read anymore Scripture.”

“You can’t give up. You aren’t going to-“ she pleaded.

“Sing me a song, Mama,” I studied her lovely face. I was determined to memorize every line, every wrinkle, every speck of hazel in her beautiful eyes.

She shook her head again as she pressed the dish towel covered in roosters to her crow’s feet and tried to conceal her tears.

“You know the one I want to hear. Sing it,” I motioned for her to sing as Biscuit yawned and sat on top of her feet covered in fuzzy peach house shoes.

“I won’t,” she argued. “I want you to rail against this, not embrace it.”

“Of course I embrace it, Mama. I know what waits for me there. You know who waits for me there. You can’t be selfish about this, Mama. I’m hurting. I’m ready to go,” I reached for my mother’s fingers as her lip began to quiver, and she pulled my hand to her soft cheek.

I’d always thought my mother’s voice was the most beautiful I’d ever heard. She sang the loudest in the church choir, and I’d never heard a more elegant version of “Happy Birthday” than the one that passed through her lips as I prepared to blow out candles on the yellow cake with chocolate icing.

And as her vocals filled the room with the daisy walls and the bored Cocker Spaniel, I closed my eyes. I could hear the angels harmonizing with my Mama. Her voice tried to crack, but she somehow held steady. I could see them there, the ones I’d longed to see for so many years, and I knew I was home. I also knew a smile covered my face as the pain left my body and my mother continued to sing.

“Some glad morning, when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away.”

 

Previously published in Southern Writers Magazine

cancer Short Story Sunday Southern Writers