Healing

Hellie

Barbara Ann buys the basket of plants. And then she tells me to meet her Monday evening at the MLK. I don’t have the social skills to politely communicate that this is where my brother regularly learns how to be human, and I have no desire to be part of that process.

Instead, I say, "Um, yeah, 'kay," in an attempt at the English language, and then she leaves, briskly nodding as if we’ve accomplished something.

What that is, I have no clue.

I stop by the corner store before heading home and pick up a few of Pearl's favorites: tapioca pudding, canned smoked salmon, a canister of Folgers coffee, and saltine crackers. I picked up a frozen meal claiming to be enchiladas for me and one of those healthy sodas I tried once ironically and ended up forever needing in my life.

When I get home, I find Pearl asleep on the couch, The Golden Girls still marathoning right along. I turn off the TV and put the groceries away, pop the enchiladas in the microwave. I sit at the small desk in front of the window in the living room. I prop open my laptop to watch a little YouTube while I eat, but first, I make a pit stop.

I search "Jesus said, 'Take up your mat and walk," and scroll through a number of different articles that feel like they're explaining hieroglyphics. I finally get to one that reveals the passage this line (saying, verse?) is from and it talks about a man who's an invalid. It strikes me that Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed. Who wouldn't want to be? But then as I read on, the man's complaining that no one has put him in the water so he can be healed.

I can't say it's a lightening bolt moment considering I'm still in one piece, but there's something about that image that treads too closely to where I'm currently sitting. If I'm honest, I suppose I've been waiting, too, for somebody to fix "this," i.e. my life.

I think about my mother, how often she had been the hindrance to me taking that first step – any first step, really. But maybe I've been looking at it all wrong.

Maybe she never has been the hindrance. Maybe I am.

I swallow down the enchiladas with a gulp of Mango Mantra soda and look over at Pearl. I debate whether I should wake her up or let her rest a little more. I opt for the latter, grabbing another blanket and kissing her forehead as I tuck her in.

Do you want to be healed? I think as I look at my closest friend struggling to breathe in her sleep.

Yes, I say to myself. Very much so.