Pulse Of Life. Sixteen Weeks.

Pulse Of Life...

WOW.  I did not realize as I wrote my last post how much provocative thought I would experience.  I really hadn’t thought about just what exactly I had gone through those first four months, which equals a semester and was my time measure then.  Just making it through my part-time job, trying to study before and after work.  Then I went to class.  Three real classes and one online class.  I had to account for time to work on my online class and I had to attend and do classwork for three classroom classes.  My sleep each night was between bad and worse but, at least I was sober.  Each night I would say The Lord’s Prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer, and The Serenity Prayer. 

Each Political Science class was brutal for none other than firstly, the professor was so dry and boring that sunshine almost never stuck his head into the room.  Never mind that I had no attention span.  Three times through the semester the professor told us she never posted the class notes online because otherwise nobody would ever show up to her class.  No kidding the students would check each other’s notes to make sure they got it all.  My hand cramped writing notes from each Tuesday evening, flexing my hand during the ten-minute break.   I already mentioned it once however, even a lifelong sober person in class found her to be extremely boring, dry, and uninspiring of a lecturing disseminating provider of information.  Try doing that for the first sixteen weeks of sobriety.  I took an incomplete in this class the week of mom’s dying and completed the paper and test still due in six months.

Sometime after dad died 22 October we watched two history films two weeks in a row.  Both showed pictures of stacks of frozen dead soldiers.  Tough viewing under any circumstances.  OH BOY if there was one day worse in this class it was when we were watching Kamikaze pilots doing shots of Saki before their mission.  I could taste and smell and thought about warm Saki again.  Good thing for three things.  One, I was in a class which always ended on time at10PM and liquor stores close at 9PM.  Two, I was too grateful being sober.  Three, I was also grateful being sober.  I earned an "A" for my semester's only "A". The other three grades were B's.

The week before final’s week is traditionally called, “Dead week.”  Mom died the Friday during my semester’s dead week.  

The Tuesday before mom died I’d spent two full days with her, and who by this point had been returned to her home and bedroom to die. 

I placed my cell phone next to me at my table in class that Tuesday night.  When the professor (Who HATES cell phone usage in class) handed me my test paper I told him, “My mom’s dying right now and if she begins to die I need to go.”  He asked me if I really wanted to be there right then?  I told him that evening before I left mom’s side and attend my history class, mom and I said the Lord’s Prayer together as we always had together for many years.  I told her I needed to go to class.  She nodded yes, and replied, “Yes go.”  Mom was as strong of a supporter and believer in my ability to complete my full-time education and earn my bachelor’s degree as my priest and I were.