Mom and the cancer lady
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
when I was thirteen
my mom got sick from smoking
she had lung disease and couldn't work
in the restaurant anymore.
we moved into a government project
and lived on disability and military survivor
benefits, the money took a while and we
lived on pork and beans,
it wasn't too bad, it was stable and the rent
would always be paid, it was the best we'd had
in years,
my mom converted herself into the flower
lady,
she spent her days in the smog of the L.A. basin
digging flower beds and growing flowers to decorate
the cracked concrete sidewalk to our front door,
later, she dug flower beds down the sidewalk to the
backdoor and then a patch under the clotheslines with
strawberries, the sweet peas crawled up the back porch
and draped themselves in white and purple blooms
dangling off the wire strings like a trellus,
she did that for years with short periods spent in hospitals
for COPD and heart attacks and little strokes, eventually
her knees went bad from all the kneeling in the flowers,
they said they had to replace her knee and a little man
from India gave her a tree branch instead with twists and
turns and an endless supply of painful attempts to nurture
flowers in the smog,
she stopped planting flowers and took up smoking in
earnest, sitting in a dirty rocking chair and dropping
ashes into the carpet at her feet, TV became her friend
and she grew deaf and cataract,
the next year she found a lump in her breast and the
surgeon craved her like a slaughtered lamb leaving her
lop-sided and deeply ashamed, crippled and maimed
she took to the chair and didn't watch
tv anymore, she just sat like a wingless bird on a wire
too high to get off and looked far away,
one day not long after the butcher did his work
she was sitting looking far away when a rich matron
wearing a pink pill hat and matching skirt and blazer
and diamond broach,
knocked on the door.
she was a volunteer from the Cancer Society and had come to
comfort my mom and tell her about her own recovery,
she even brought a bra with a fake tit,
mom served her instant tea and listened politely as
the aging debutante shared how her husband wouldn't
touch her and the awkwardness on Sundays at the
country club,
she was grateful for the touch of the plastic surgeon
and the wonders of silicone,
she offered to set my mother up with an appointment
when mom was ready, until then she explained how the
bra with the fake tit worked,
after she had healed from the implants, the princess decided to
treat herself,
she took a cruise to the Caribbean with an old girlfriend
from college, spent ten days in Jamaica absorbing the sun
on white sandy beaches with cabana boys and silly rum
drinks with pink umbrellas,
before returning to the grind of volunteer work and endless
committees they went to Rio for Carnival. she had a one-nght-stand
with some dark Brazilian man she couldn't understand,
it was just the ticket to pull her out of her depression.
she smiled to my mom and patted her hand, then said "yes,
a cruise to the islands, you really must go."
my mom, shaking as she lit another cigarette, watched a
roach crawl across the carpet through the ashes at her feet,
exhaling to let the vapors of her sanity escape before
she exploded, looked up at the woman in pink and said "œyes, I think
I should."
I'll never understand how that woman made it out alive.
J. Masuda © 2005
Oh yeah, buy the book. http://www.lulu.com and type in Johnny Masuda. It makes a great gift.
my mom got sick from smoking
she had lung disease and couldn't work
in the restaurant anymore.
we moved into a government project
and lived on disability and military survivor
benefits, the money took a while and we
lived on pork and beans,
it wasn't too bad, it was stable and the rent
would always be paid, it was the best we'd had
in years,
my mom converted herself into the flower
lady,
she spent her days in the smog of the L.A. basin
digging flower beds and growing flowers to decorate
the cracked concrete sidewalk to our front door,
later, she dug flower beds down the sidewalk to the
backdoor and then a patch under the clotheslines with
strawberries, the sweet peas crawled up the back porch
and draped themselves in white and purple blooms
dangling off the wire strings like a trellus,
she did that for years with short periods spent in hospitals
for COPD and heart attacks and little strokes, eventually
her knees went bad from all the kneeling in the flowers,
they said they had to replace her knee and a little man
from India gave her a tree branch instead with twists and
turns and an endless supply of painful attempts to nurture
flowers in the smog,
she stopped planting flowers and took up smoking in
earnest, sitting in a dirty rocking chair and dropping
ashes into the carpet at her feet, TV became her friend
and she grew deaf and cataract,
the next year she found a lump in her breast and the
surgeon craved her like a slaughtered lamb leaving her
lop-sided and deeply ashamed, crippled and maimed
she took to the chair and didn't watch
tv anymore, she just sat like a wingless bird on a wire
too high to get off and looked far away,
one day not long after the butcher did his work
she was sitting looking far away when a rich matron
wearing a pink pill hat and matching skirt and blazer
and diamond broach,
knocked on the door.
she was a volunteer from the Cancer Society and had come to
comfort my mom and tell her about her own recovery,
she even brought a bra with a fake tit,
mom served her instant tea and listened politely as
the aging debutante shared how her husband wouldn't
touch her and the awkwardness on Sundays at the
country club,
she was grateful for the touch of the plastic surgeon
and the wonders of silicone,
she offered to set my mother up with an appointment
when mom was ready, until then she explained how the
bra with the fake tit worked,
after she had healed from the implants, the princess decided to
treat herself,
she took a cruise to the Caribbean with an old girlfriend
from college, spent ten days in Jamaica absorbing the sun
on white sandy beaches with cabana boys and silly rum
drinks with pink umbrellas,
before returning to the grind of volunteer work and endless
committees they went to Rio for Carnival. she had a one-nght-stand
with some dark Brazilian man she couldn't understand,
it was just the ticket to pull her out of her depression.
she smiled to my mom and patted her hand, then said "yes,
a cruise to the islands, you really must go."
my mom, shaking as she lit another cigarette, watched a
roach crawl across the carpet through the ashes at her feet,
exhaling to let the vapors of her sanity escape before
she exploded, looked up at the woman in pink and said "œyes, I think
I should."
I'll never understand how that woman made it out alive.
J. Masuda © 2005
Oh yeah, buy the book. http://www.lulu.com and type in Johnny Masuda. It makes a great gift.