Mom vs. The Marble

Mom vs. The Marble

There is no stronger bond than a boy and his grandpa. Don't get me wrong, a father and son can be strong, but the father has to be a father, the grandpa can be anything. And to me, my grandpa was everything. Now, I don't talk about him much, only for a couple reasons. One, he has past away and I get a little emotional, okay alot. And two, well those were our moments and talking about them seems to lessen it just a bit. But this story just came together, and I've never told it…not even to my mom. It's completely true. So mom here's an early Mother's Day gift.
 
In about the last 6-12 months before my grandpa's death, my mother took care of him in the house I grew up in. She had been a nurse for many years, a very caring person when people were sick, and above all her father was dying. I didn't visit him very often in that time, which I do regret. And as I am sure the regret was mutual, there was also a reason, which was mutual. He didn't want me to see him like that. And I didn't want to see him like that. Every time I would visit, I would end up crying and he would tell me to wait until he was gone to do that. There was only one time that I didn't cry, where I actually laughed.
 
Near the end my grandpa was taking a lot of pain meds, including morphine. He always complained of cottonmouth, which was most bothersome to him. Almost worst than the fact that he was dying. So he had this marble. THIS MARBLE. He would keep this marble in his mouth to stimulate his salivation glands, thus fixing the cottonmouth issue. He kept it in all the time.
 
On one of my last visits to him, I was sitting by his bed and he said something odd to me. This wasn't uncommon since he was all doped up on morphine. He mumbled around the marble, "You know your mom's crazy, right?" I just agreed, because he seemed to say random things, while riding the high. He followed up with, "She's crazy! She seems to think that I am going to choke on this marble and die." He smiled and continued, "She's so worried about this damn marble, she forgot I'm actually dying from congestive heart failure." He started laughing, which in turn made me crack the hell up. If you only knew about my mom and this marble you'd laugh your ass off too. I am not a talented enough writer, to express in words, the eternal battle of "Mom vs. The Marble". Soon after our laugh he fell asleep, and I left for the first time without crying.
 
…I only bring this up now, because of something my son did two weekends ago, and I'd thought I would finally share this with my mom for Mother's Day. I took my kids to a place called Safari Sam's. You know, one of those places where you spend a ton of money, to get hundreds of tickets, to trade in for worthless toys. The same toys that you could have got at the dollar store, but instead of paying a dollar, you just dropped 75. At the ticket trade in, my son Noah chose marbles among other things. We left Safari Sam's and began our journey home. About half way home, my daughter Chloe says, "Dad, Noah just put a marble in his mouth". My first reaction was this, "Noah, get that marble out of your mouth, you could choke and die". As I looked in my rear view mirror, Noah spit out the marble, and then looked at me like I was crazy…
 
Soon after my last laugh with my grandpa, he past away from congestive heart failure, not from choking on a marble…
 
R.I.P. Claude Orlo Williams
And Mom, I love you very much…Happy Mother's Day!