You Can’t Fix Dead

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Its two in the morning Rhonda’s phone beeps, a text has been sent. She turns on the light, grabs her glasses and reads the message half asleep. One of the kids asking if she was doing anything. If not could she pick him up from the city as he has no other way home.

My dear wife  works twelve-hour days and to say she is tired at night when she crawls into bed is an understatement. Without missing a beat she texts back, “tell me where you are, I’m on my way.”  She jumps out of bed gets dressed, grabs her bag and heads for the door in her pajamas.

Me with my eyes closed can picture her every move. This scene has played itself out a hundred times.

“May I remind you” I say, my eyes still glued shut, “that before he went out you  told him he needs to find his own way home. You don’t have to do this”. .

“Yes I do” she says.

“Why?”

“Because I can, because I’m a mother, because  that’s what I do.”

“Ok, you win, drive safe…..”.

Rhonda takes pride in being a mother, she loves it and she relishes the daily mundane challenges each child presents.

Broken arms, severe burns, heartbreak, bullying at school, low grades, health issues, sibling wars, police matters, teenagers, the list goes on.

Rhonda is right in the midst of it at all times, always ready to  fix any problem big or small. She may not have all the answers but you can be sure she will go about finding someone who does.

One morning while having a cup of coffee together,(not many days after Aaron’s death), we were caught up in our own thoughts enjoying one of those special moments without having to speak. We were still in the “what on God’s good earth just happened to us” state of confusion.

We were understandably having a hard time accepting  Aaron was no longer with us, that he would never show up unannounced anymore, that we would never see him again at a family gathering was difficult coming to terms with.

Breaking our silence Rhonda blurted out, “you can’t fix dead”.

She looked over at me to see if I had heard what she said, I did and I looked at her for an explanation.

She said, “you know, I have this philosophy in life that as long as there is a pulse,there is life and where there is life there is hope. When we have hope I have the belief that if there is a problem or one of our kids needs fixing it can be done. But you can’t fix dead. Aaron can’t be fixed anymore.”

We went back to sipping our coffee giving more attention to our own thoughts.

From time to time when we hear of a suicide our hearts go out to the survivors, the loved ones left behind. We understand the unwanted journey that each one must travel. We would look at each other and sigh, sometimes one of us would say, ” “you can’t fix dead”.

Now it impresses us even more that we can and should try even harder to fix those who still have a pulse.