My husband and I were at an outdoor barbecue to celebrate the end of the school year.  My husband’s phone rang.  It was a clerk at the emergency room asking for me.  My mother was in emergency, up north.  It was a five hour drive!

We hurried home, and it was ten p.m.  I asked my oldest daughter to go up north with me, and we had to leave immediately.  We threw clothes into a garbage bag and began our trip.  “Watch for deer, dammit.”  I said.  We drove the speed limit and my daughter slipped a disc into the player in the car and we suddenly were transported to a rock concert.

It was dark.  No one was out on the road, it seemed, as we crossed the state.  Towns, houses, farms, and traffic lights disappeared.  Every once in a while there was a crossroad with a stop sign.  I stopped at every one.  My daughter asked, “Why do you stop?  This is the middle of nowhere.”  I told her that the state police looked for cars doing something wrong day and night.”

I whispered to myself, “Don’t you die on me, mom.  I am not in the mood.”  We drove on and the music filled the car and as we neared the hospital we were singing along with the music.  I was tired.  It was nearly three a.m.!  I did not notice that I was going ten miles an hour over the speed limit.

I heard a siren, and saw flashing lights behind me.  I was eleven miles from the hospital!  My daughter’s jaw dropped open.  A policeman got out of his car and I gave him my license and registration.  I got a ticket.

I continued on for eleven miles and pulled into the emergency area of the tiny hospital.  We walked into emergency and gave our names.  My mother exited the examination room with a big smile on her face and her arms outstretched to greet us.  “Let’s get pizza!”

I hugged her and told her that we would see.  That’s how she responded to my requests when I was a child.  A group of grieving relatives emerged, and I nodded in sympathy.  My mom saw them and said, at the top of her voice, “THE GUY IN THE BED NEXT TO ME CROAKED!”

There were no pizza palaces open at three thirty in the morning.  But, the grocery store was open!  We bought two frozen pizzas, cooked them both and my mom ate one.  My mind blanked out.  I needed to go to bed and so did my daughter.  Tummy full, my mom saved the other pizza.  I heard her settle into her little bed in her room.  My daughter and I passed out once we heard a snore from her bedroom.

I have been in emergency rooms myself over the years.  I always wondered about the person in the bed next to me.  I worried that the person would croak or that I would croak.  I NEVER said it!