She's Sherrie

The Front Porch The last Halloween that we lived in Dallas, all 3 kids came home sick on Halloween and couldn't go out.  I painted my face to look like a skeleton and wore a hood and monk's robes. My face painting was AWESOME, I couldn't believe how well it turned out.  And as good as it looked inside the house, it was even scarier outside. I sat on the front porch on a planter right next to the door.  You couldn't ignore me. Groups of kids and their adults would walk up the walk, see me and then slow down.  They encouraged the kids to go ahead and knock on the door while they stood sideways looking at me.  They would tell the kids that it was okay that I wasn't real and don't be scared.  But they were.  I sat motionlessly.  One kid told the mom I was staring at him.  She laughed it off and touched my skeletal made up a hand.  I could have scared the crap out of her but chose to maintain my cover.  Everyone was scared.  Finally, many kids with a bunc

I thought that I would be able to write about the events leading up to my son's death from cancer before the anniversary date of September 29, well before that time arrived.  I found that writing about it has been so emotional that it reignites the horror show in my brain.  The sounds and the scenes burned forever in my mind, click themselves to the on position and play over and over. This day, my birthday, is particularly emotional for me.  It is the anniversary of the day that the hospice nurse told me that my son would probably die.  I wasn't even thinking about my birthday; I was consumed with the declining state of my son's life. When she told me, it hit me like a brick even though I had tried to prepare myself for it.  It was a reality, and it was crushing.  I remember looking at Jeff when she told me that his pale, thin body lay motionless in the hospital bed.  All of the days of torturous pain for him were almost over.  He did not deserve to die from this horr

After Jeff's surgery, I spent the morning calling everyone that I was required to call officially and keep peace in the family.  My son's manager, where he worked, was the most upset of anyone I talked to.  He was also a young guy like Jeff's doctor, and the impact of death at 34 from cancer was unbelievable to him.  He offered help to me for anything that I might need.  As usual, my ex Mike had his answering machine, which angered me because he knew I would call about Jeff.  If he could be cold, so could I; I left a message about the diagnosis and prognosis.  My mom showed no emotion at all; she didn't gasp, she didn't cry, she was very detached, and so was my brother.  My boss pissed me off with her Suzy Sunshine imagination of how he "might" get better.  I ended my phone calls after that one.  I had to go to the hospital. There was a nurse in Jeff's room when I got there.  She told me that he had been restless all night and in a lot of pain.  The

Jeff was in surgery for about four hours.  I paced the room, walked outside, turned the TV on and off, and finally just sat in a chair and did nothing but wait and worry.  A nurse came in and told me he was out of recovery, and they would be taking him back to his room.  She said he was heavily sedated and would be that way for one or two days.  She asked me to follow her to talk to Jeff's doctor. The air was thick in the room when I walked in.  I was in a tiny room with a bed and a chair; maybe it was a room for the physicians to sleep in.  I don't remember his doctor's name, but I do recall that he and Jeff were the same age.  I could tell by the look on his face that I was going to get bad news.  A nurse was standing behind me; I recognized her as one of the nurses assigned to Jeff.  She was also very young in her twenties.  The conversation began with, "we removed 18 inches of your son's colon."  That was the good news.  It was all downhill from ther

Happier days. Jeff was awake when I walked into his room, but he was very groggy.  He had an IV with a morphine drip for his pain and to keep him calm.  Keep him calm?  If he knew everything that I knew, he would be freaking out.  He was so medicated that he was not totally in touch with reality. That was a good thing.   He tried to tell me what was going on, but it was all mixed up.  I patted his face and said to him that I knew what was going on, which seemed to satisfy him.  He went to sleep. I sat in a chair next to his bed.  Nurses were in and out.  They would wake him up to ask him questions, and then he would go back to sleep.  Nobody called his room to check on him, not his dad, his grandmother, or any of his friends at work.  It was just him and me.  It would be that way for most of his illness. Sitting in that room in the dark next to him, the only thing I could do was think.  I had a multitude of thoughts scrambling around in my brain, none of them good.  I was doin

After the Jeff Foxworthy show at the end of May, Jeff started to look bad.  He was very pale and had the beginning of dark circles under his eyes.  I asked him to please go to the doctor.  I told him we would manage the expense and mentioned that he could still go to the clinic for free.  A physician would examine him and make recommendations for the next step to take.   He just shook his head negatively.  He was an adult, and unfortunately, I could not force him to go.  The show that we attended on Memorial Day would be the last time we ever spent together in a fun environment. Days were passing by, and Jeff was visibly ill.  He would drag himself to work, come home, eat, and then fall asleep on the sofa until it was time for him to go to work again.  There was nothing I could do for him to make him feel better.  Even his voice was getting weak. He came home from work on a Monday after work, walked in the house, and said he would take a shower.   He asked me if I would take him

The images of the tragedy of September 11, 2001,  are horrific.  I would venture to say that every witness to it, be it in person as a bystander, a survivor, or millions of television viewers, have some images from that day burned into their memory.  These pictures are something that we will never forget.  For me, the Falling Man photo as he has been tagged is one of the most horrific. Imagine how terrible it was in that building; it is haunting.  The choice between dying of smoke inhalation or burning to death, or jumping from the building were the only choices the victims had if they survived the initial fire and explosions.   All resulted in death.  Desperation to live and escape the terror was the common denominator in choosing to jump.  And in reality, none of the people jumping thought they could survive the fall.  It was all done in desperation. The gentleman in the photo has never been identified.  The man's death was caused, not by jumping. He was climbing down the