I'll Always Be My Momma's Baby

Last Wednesday a nurse handed me a small plastic cup and said, "We need a specimen."

In a split second it was thirty eight years ago and I was in Dr. Corum's office in Tampa. I was fourteen years old. I had strep throat for the millionth time and my mom had taken me to the doctor. I was growing up; my "restricted" driver's license was only a year away and I was cool. My hair was starting to get a little longer and I was wearing flares and desert boots. I was old enough to already have my first motorcycle, a Harley Davidson 125. I was sitting with my mom in the waiting room. There was a separate waiting area for patients considered to be contagious; we were in there.

A nurse called my name. I got up, so did my mom. I didn't want her to but she came with me through a door and into a hall where another nurse handed me a small paper cup and said, "We need a specimen." Before I had time to respond in a cool fourteen year old kind of way my mother looks at me like I'm lost and says, "Son, she wants you to wee wee in the cup." I was humiliated.

"The restroom is right down the hall." Back to reality I smiled at the nurse. She didn't know why. I took the cup and fulfilled my responsibility. I thought about how if it were possible for my mom to have been with me the other day she would have looked at me like I was lost and said, "Son, She wants you to wee wee in the cup." I wish she could have been there.

I miss my mom.