I’ve been having a crazy month of August. It started off in Puerto Rico actually. Six days in a luxury hotel in San Juan – only to arrive at John F. Kennedy airport on Sunday, August 4th and later hit up the Beyoncé concert at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. My daughter and I had an amazing time.

Actually, let me backtrack to San Juan for a minute. That was the first time I had ever been treated to an all expense paid vacation. I enjoyed it.

Between celebrating my birthday with a few close friends a couple of weeks later at a spot called La Marina on 8/16, meeting some sort of psychic at a penthouse party that same night (I also met a cute Hispanic bellman named Adonis who works at a midtown Manhattan hotel. He busted me leaning over my trunk eating a birthday cupcake from Crumbs bakery. Embarrassed, I offered him one . He asked, “will you feed it to me?” Hmm. He texted a few times but never called so that was that.), I also lost sleep over squirrels, or raccoons, or roof rats or whatever the hell they were playing tag in my attic late at night, went on a date with a convicted robber, and started making plans to do some renovations on my house. I saw the movie The Butler too (my daughter treated me for my birthday). Loved it.

Wait, let me backtrack. My actual birthday is 8/19. I had that day off from work, so I basically just shopped and pampered myself (and took my daughter back to school). One thing in particular that stood out to me that day is the fact that he didn’t call. My ex-boyfriend that I spent eleven years with. (No, we never went on a real vacation; he was afraid to fly, although he never admitted it.) I called his cellphone on 8/20 and left a sarcastic message: “Thanks for calling me on my birthday!” He never called back. I told my mother that something must have happened to him because he didn’t call me on my birthday. She told me he had probably just moved on.

Honestly, I thought about him more than usual this month. If he were there, I wouldn’t have been so terrified by the noises in the attic. (I slept downstairs on the couch two nights.) See, when you have a man to get up and investigate the bumps in the night, you automatically feel safer.

If he had been still living me, maybe I could’ve gotten help with my new renovation ideas. Maybe. I was pretty much a one-woman show in that department the whole time we were together. I was thinking about how he worked my nerves to the point of no return, and about how the straw that broke the camel’s back was me coming home late one night to his smelly feet and him thinking it was funny. I told him that was the last night he would ever share a room with me.

I was thinking about how he was really a decent man who afforded me some stability while raising small children. Lord knows I’ve been through it.

I was working this piece in my head about his freaky ways (sexually).

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

“Ma, Michael’s brothers just showed up from North Carolina and rang our bell!! They said he had a real bad stroke and that he’s paralyzed and bleeding in his brain! They just left.”

That was the call I got from my 17-year old son on Monday 8/26 at about 12:30 in the afternoon. I was sitting in my cubicle at work.

We’ve been separated for two years. He never changed his address at work. It’s still listed as mine. He never changed my name on his important paperwork. He had never stopped showing up whenever I called or needed him – like during Hurricane Sandy.

I went to see him in the hospital after I got the call. Apparently, he was leaving restaurant in Harlem, stepped outside and collapsed. He’s made a lot of progress since then (8/17). From what I heard, he died and had to be resuscitated – and put on life support for a day and a half.

Completely paralyzed on his right side and unable to speak, he recognized and acknowledged me when I walked in the room. With a finger point, he tried introducing me to the lady who was standing by his bedside caressing his arm. The one who was with him when he fell.

Today is the 28th. His rehab therapy starts next week – at the start of September.

Related articles

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Categories: Blogging, Inspiration, Narratives, Personal Stories

Tags: August, Breaking Up With Boyfriend, Friendship, Grief, Hypertension, Inspiration, La Marina, Life, Life Change, Memoir, Puerto Rico, Reflections, Relationships, Separation, Setbacks, Stroke Victims