Endings - My Friend’s Mother

I remember that near the end for John Jennings’ mother.

At that time of my life I was swallowed up with the idea of god and was thinking about becoming a Catholic since I was beyond the fear of hell, which didn’t drive the decision but instead was most in love with the Latin ceremony, the choir’s angelic echo and chants and my ego centric thinking that God may even be tempting me to join the church. I was living in what I thought was a state of grace even if it were between games of nine ball, straight pool, Chicago and dragging on a cigarette.

On the night before Phil Jennings died, after eleven in the evening I walked a steady paced toward Physicians General Hospital a long distance, deep into Jackson Height thinking, believing that my prayers and discussion with God would spare John’s mother.

I don’t remember if it was summer or winter or spring or fall but what I know was that the hospital was incredibly quiet and subdued; the lights were dimmed. Curiously, I had no problem finding a person who gave me directions to Mrs. Jennings’s room. I didn’t go into her room. I could have because there was a chair right next to her bed. Something stopped me. Maybe it was fear or maybe it was my sense of allowing her privacy. Or maybe it was my sense of reverence. Whatever it was I didn’t go in. The door was open and I could see Phil. She was asleep. Tubes were in her mouth, nose, an arm and one tube vended its way under the bedclothes.

Across from Phil’s room was a convenient bench for me that allowed me a direct view; I didn’t even have to stretch my neck it was so perfectly situated. I sat for some time contemplating all the times in my childhood that I had fun based precisely on the game Mrs. Jennings would set up for her son and his friends, me and Pete and a few others. There must have as no school the next day because I didn’t have any sense of immediacy to leave.

At some point my contemplation turned to prayer. I prayed for my Phil’s health; I though for sure that by my prayers she would stay with us and get out of the hospital in a day or two. I believed it was really as simple as that. I negotiated with God that if he spared her life I would become a Catholic. Then I felt guilty that I was not negotiating in good faith because I was already considering the change. I apologized to God but felt I may have screwed up the chances of saving Phil. I felt terrible.

There was no epiphany, nothing supernatural, there was no miracle that happened. Nevertheless, I crossed myself thinking that every little bit helps.

I left and I cried on the way home. When I got a block or two away and stopped crying. It dawned on me that nothing I had just done would change her fate. John’s mother, Phyllis Jennings, was already in God's hands. What stopped me from breaking down completely with that new concept was that part of me became gleeful that while I hadn’t even thought about any related pain that she may have been suffering and the in fact there was no one attending her, no nurse no doctor it was because my dear friend’s mother was at peace in her moments and she was being protected. I couldn’t have gotten into her room as hard as I tried.

When I got home I still didn’t sleep and instead I conjured other times with Phil.

The Jennings had a 1950 Ford and drove us here and there with us always sitting in the back seat, never the front.

Arriving at John’s apartment I remember Phil pointing me to the back bedroom and instructed me to tell John to keep it down because Phyllis was still sleeping in the bedroom, which had been the dining room. (By the way it seemed like many of my friends had apartments that had bedrooms, which were converted sections of larger kitchens; my room, for instance was exactly that, with no closet.) We would play basketball ball with the basket made out of a hanger that we configured to clamp on top of the door of the closet. We had a woven net that we made out of string. For the basketball itself we used masking tape we took strips of and formed the strips into a ball. We used John’s bed and Gil's as places to shoot jump shots without being blocked.

I recall those beds when I was younger though. We would sit and listen to Big Rock Candy Mountain. As four and five year olds we would tickle each other and John’s brother Gil, who was older but suffered from some form of mental retardation.  He was never going to develop beyond the age of twelve.

Gil was not the source of many of the problems in the Jennings family; he was the catalyst. The source, like many middle class families of the fifties was alcohol. I can’t think of a friend whose family wasn’t touched by alcoholism. But having a mentally retarded child was a fate, which when the child got older meant that life can't really get too much worse for you. Paralysis, stroke-induced blindness, bankruptcy, all of these tragedies pale in comparison with having a 13-year old son whose favorite color is "peaches." God can't fuck you any more. And so the family, like all families with such tragedies, began to come apart at the seams.

Mostly I remember John’s mother’s happiness and great sense of humor; she loved her children and maybe Gil most of all. Phil and Phyllis seemed more like sisters than mother and daughter.

I always felt protected when I was near John’s mother. She would never let anything bad come about. May she rest in peace.