Monday, December 2, 2013

The Miracle Made With the Man Who Holds Her


Taylor Cooper

Professor Lauri Anderson Alford

English 2307

24 November 2013

The Miracle Made With the Man Who Holds Her

            “My beautiful, angel sent, miracle baby” is what she would always call him. “My pride and joy” was another term she used to explain her obese Michelin Baby. After he was born she had to be sedated due to her inability to let the sumo infant go so that the doctor could do his job and give medical treatment to the newborn and herself. Madly in love is an understatement when it came to her feelings for this child. Clinically insane would have been a more appropriate way of explaining her obsession with the miracle.

            You see, she was a jaw dropping beauty, a riveting conversationalist, and had always been a delightful person to be in the presence of. When she entered a room everyone just seemed to radiate with joy and enthusiasm. She had a way of rubbing her good vibrations off on everyone she came into contact with. Naturally, children had a strong attraction to her and her to them. The only hiccup in her design was that she was the type that was meant to die young or at least never become old. In other words she was a bit of a rock star. Her body even knew this at a young age for she developed ovarian cancer at seventeen, disabling her from ever producing a child.

            Men were always infatuated with her and she knew it. Out of the millions who attempted to court her, there was only one who succeeded, and even after they parted, there was never another. When she loved, she loved with every fiber in her body, all the way down to her soul, and the receiver of this gift would forever be in awe from the power of it.

            After Tyler, the miracle baby, turned six his mother and father split. This was due to his father’s constant cheating and alleged drug use, but that was never truly validated. Once the divorce was finalized Tyler and his mother moved about twenty two times. They went from house to house while his mother tried to find another match to suit her. This never happened.

            When Tyler was fifteen his mother started dating a twenty four year old man. He was a screw up, but he came from money and his mother seemed to be happy so he couldn’t complain. Once he asked her “Mom, why do you care about this dip shit so much?” She replied with “When he holds me, I feel safe; he’s the only man who has made me feel that way since your father.” Tyler would never forget that statement.

            Tyler’s mother and the young man split after he was caught having sex with his mother’s best friend. After the break up Tyler’s mother went into a deep depression. Tyler had seen his mother depressed before, but she could normally numb it for a week or so with case or two of Coor’s Lite and then snap out of it. This depression was different. She was so depressed this time that she went to the doctor, and the doctor prescribed her an anti-anxiety medication; Alprazolam and more famously known by the Pfizer brand-name of Xanax. This undoubtedly marked the turning point. This was the beginning of the end.

            Once Tyler’s mother started using Xanax, she became a different person. She was asleep more than she was awake; and when she was awake she was highly irritable. She stopped caring as much for her miracle and started caring more for her precious Xanax. The overwhelming love she once possessed for others, turned in to an overpowering addiction for her next fix. She was once known as the most caring and giving person anyone could ever come into contact with, and now people didn’t want her in their home due to her sticky fingers and spiteful words.

            By the time she was forty-six years old, only seven years after Xanax came into her life, she had lost her son, her home, her job, her car and her dignity. She would lie in her mother’s guest bedroom and get high off of whatever she could get her hands on. Eventually Tyler couldn’t take watching his mother destroy herself any longer, so he joined the service and went as far away as his orders could take him.

            While Tyler was stationed overseas, his mother would often send him messages saying the same things over and over again. Things like “I’m so tired of this life; when you get back I will be clean and have a house for you to come home to,” or “I love you so much Tyler; these people don’t understand me at all; when you come back we will have a home that we can live in and I’ll never let you go again.” These messages sounded wonderful, but Tyler had been hearing the same rants since he was eighteen and at this point they just made him feel sorry for her.

            When Tyler finally did return, he came back to his mother being worse than he had ever seen. She would get so high on pills that when he would visit that he would have to carry her from the floor to her bed while she mumbled to herself.

            One day out of the blue his mother went to a free rehabilitation center to try and get clean. Tyler didn’t get to speak to her while she was there, but he was very proud of her for taking this leap on her own. Sadly, ten days later she dropped out of the program and was shortly back on drugs.

            At this point Tyler was enrolled in a college and was hoping to better himself with a higher level of education. Two weeks before he was to ship off to his far away college, he went to his grandmother’s house to visit his mother. That week was full of love and it almost seemed as if his mother was back to normal. They laughed and talked about a future that was all of a sudden looking bright and full of opportunity.

            On Tyler’s last day with his mother she said “Baby, I’m sorry but I have to leave because I have an interview for a position at a high school.” As you could imagine, Tyler was ecstatic to hear this information so her told her good luck and they went their separate ways.

            The next morning Tyler found himself at a hospital looking over his mother’s swollen body. She was yellow and puffy because all the drugs she took had shut down her organs and became septic. The only reason she was alive was because of the oxygen the doctors were pumping into her feverish body with a machine.

            Tyler had seen his mother suffer for seven years now and had never been able to help her. Now, as he held her puffy yellow hand and an army of family and friends stood beside him, he told the doctor to pull the plug. Tyler then released his mother’s sweaty palm so that he could sign the “Do Not Resituate” paperwork. He then walked out of the hospital and got into his car and began his academic journey alone with hopes of a brighter future.

4 comments:

  1. Taylor, I really enjoyed reading your story. It was really interesting, and the verbiage that you used, was implemented correctly. I find that a lot of times people try to use big words- but don't integrate them correctly. That being said, I thought the outline, or plot was well written and made sense. I really liked that when I was reading your story, I could totally imagine it. Also, I liked the brief/subtle foreshadowing about the mother- and l liked the twist at the end with her death and the narrators part of it. There were some small grammar issues, like the misspelling of "resuscitate". I think that this story, after some tweeking, could probably fit right in to the Wilson or Horrock's books as a short story. It would have to be a little "sicker" or perverse in some way. However, I liked the trope, or loneliness, that we have seen so often. So, good read, and thanks!

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  2. Taylor! This story was very touching. Though sad, I love the hope that is left at the end, the hope of a brighter future and a happy ending. I also love the use of this “miracle baby”. It was obvious that this baby brought so much joy to his mother, and it is so sad that the mother lost sight of the joy this baby once brought her and started seeking to find her joy in other places. Though it is cool how through the mother’s and father’s mistakes, Tyler can learn the importance in his life. That true happiness cannot be found in worldly things such as other people or drugs, because worldly things eventually go away or stop working, and can end up destroying someone. It seems that the mother called her baby a “miracle baby” for a reason. He is a miracle, and despite everything that has happened to this baby, he still has as good of a chance as anyone at a bright future. Everything from his past is just equipping him and strengthening him for his future. I like the way you formatted your story and how all of your points lead to one conclusion, that Tyler see’s good, despite all that has happened to him. This is a very hopeful story and leaves the reader wanting to know more about what is going to happen in Tyler’s life. Through the use of third person point of view, the reader is able to have some insight into all of the characters lives. Though more focused on Tyler, the reader can see some of the events that happened in the mother’s life and can have sympathy on her as well. The reader can see the downward spiral the mother embarks on when the last man she was with hurts her. It seems that she could no longer stand the hurt and pain anymore and wanted an escape from it all. It is through this emotional appeal that the reader can hurt with the mother, and can have compassion for what she was going through at the same time. Being a single mother must have been hard on her and hard for her to be the best mother she could be. Something that I would change in this story is just add some more insight in to the characters lives. It would give more depth to the story and add even more emotional appeal. But overall this story was great and I again love the hope at the end for Tyler. This story reminds me of “It Looks Like This” by Horrock’s. In both stories the mothers are sick and the son/daughter feels that it is their responsibility to take care of her and to make her better. But both characters realize that there is, sadly, more to life and that they must go out and make something of themselves while they can. Both characters have a goal in mind and leave the end of the story with hope. Great job on your story Taylor!

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  3. Taylor, I absolutely loved your story. I think you started out great when talking about how Tyler was the miracle baby. It really drew me in and made me curious about this story. You also did well in describing the mother. “When she entered a room everyone just seemed to radiate with joy and enthusiasm. She had a way of rubbing her good vibrations off on everyone she came into contact with.” I could envision the type of person she was and this got my emotions invested in the rest of your story. I also like that I felt as if I was hearing someone’s real life story. I can relate to some of the events that took place, so it made your story much more believable and made me really connect to the narrator. How you ended the story really gave me goose bumps. I had such a heavy heart for the narrator, but was really happy he wanted to better himself after what he had been through the past years. I think writing in third person was the best way to write this kind of story. As the reader, I had insight to both the mother and Tyler without feeling like one character was trying to manipulate my emotions over the other. I was able to sympathize with both characters equally.
    If there’s one thing I would change about your story, I would say to add more details about Tyler’s life before his mother passed. Maybe show some of the emotions he felt about everything that was happening in his life. I knew that the mother went into a deep depression after her break up and how she never found another man to love her life her first. I wanted to know more about how the miracle baby felt about his mother slipping away to a sad lifestyle.
    This story reminded me of the short stories we read by Danielle Evans. She tells her stories like they are happening right now and the situations her characters find themselves in are very relatable to the reader. The story “Virgins” has a girl dealing with her raw emotions about losing her virginity. I connected that with this story because dealing with anyone that has a drug addiction; you have to face those same hard feelings.

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  4. Taylor, this story made me cry. It was so good! Everything about the story was just very well done. My favorite sentence in the whole story would have to be "When she loved, she loved with every fiber in her body, all the way down to her soul, and the receiver of this gift would forever be in awe from the power of it." Even though the mother goes into a depression and all this stuff happens to her, because of this sentence I still have hope for her. I like how in the beginning you described as just this wonderful woman who seemed like she would never give up. Especially after she was battling cancer and still had a baby. But towards the middle and end you get a different look on the mother because we start getting the sons point of view on everything. I feel so bad for Tyler in this story because it's like he never got to see his mother when she was this awesome woman who never gave up and who was always so loving and kind. But I also like how you gave Tyler so much hope for his mother after she even went down that crazy spiral. Tyler even went back to see her and had hope for her that she was doing better than ever before and that things would finally get better.You also did a great job with describing details. It was very easy for me to get a picture in my head of everything that was happening. Even though it was sad I like how you described the way the mother looked in the hospital "She was yellow and puffy because all the drugs she took had shut down her organs and became septic." It just made everything even more upsetting about what was going on. Something that I would change about the story was hard for me to come up with. This story is so good and so real-like that it's to think of something to change. So the only thing I would change is maybe just learning more about Tyler in his life and maybe what kind of person he is having a mother like that. It would have been nice to know what Tyler was thinking throughout all the pain that his mother was going through. But, then again if we knew what Tyler was thinking it probably would have made the story even more sad than it was. This story also reminded me of the story "Jellyfish" by Evans. It seemed like the mother was trying to win her son back after all that time just like in Jellyfish were her father is trying to rekindle a flame with his daughter. Overall, this story was really good, and even though it was sad, I enjoyed reading it. Good job Taylor!

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