Light at the end of the tunnel

Inspiration
By Greg Lippert

Awake!

Response
By Robert Haydon Jones
©2018 RHJA, LLC. All Rights Reserved

When Bud Monroe, his cardiologist, told Jimmy O’Hara his aortic valve was failing and must be replaced – Jimmy had an overwhelming urge to ask God to help him, even though he hadn’t said a prayer or even believed in God for
many years.

He was out of touch with God. Like he was out of touch with his friends from his youth. Nothing formal. Just time and tide.

Time and tide. Jimmy suddenly remembered that the last time he saw Bruce,his best friend all the way from high school to his early thirties, they had been out fishing. Bruce had driven them back to Jimmy’s house on the river.

Jimmy got out, slammed the door, and said goodbye like it was forever. For the life of him, Jimmy couldn’t remember why.

That was his last time with Bruce. Forty-two years later, one of Bruce’s daughters emailed Jimmy that Bruce had died of cancer and asked Jimmy to come to the wake and funeral – but Jimmy was in Hawaii for February and even if he had been home, 
he probably wouldn’t have gone. Although he really couldn’t remember what the problem was.

That was sort of crazy because Bruce had saved Jimmy’s ass back when he was sixteen and in a world of’ hurt. Jimmy couldn’t take another night at home – andBruce had invited him to stay with him and his two younger brothers and his Mom, Hilary.

They lived in a yellow Federal perched on the edge of the town’s biggest graveyard. Jimmy stayed for months. Bruce’s brothers were two and three years younger, but in those days, that was much younger.

The father had been gone for a long time. But Hilary was pretty and fresh. This was way before people started using the phrase, “Single Mother.” Hilary appeared to Jimmy to be undaunted. She had a good job. She wore very stylish clothes. She smiled a lot.

Everyone had a chore. Bruce had to keep the furnace going and mow the lawn. Jimmy had to dump the garbage and the trash and the ashes from the furnace.

Hilary left very early in the morning on weekdays. The coffee she made was good. But he could not remember ever sitting down for a meal with Hilary and her boys. He had no memory of eating in the yellow Federal. The food thing was a mystery.

Jimmy and Bruce were sitting side by side in civics class when Melanie O’Donahue first came through the door. She had moved from Detroit. Bruce was immediately enchanted. He married Melanie after they graduated from college. Jimmy was newly married then too.

They were a foursome right away. Even after Jimmy moved to Manhattan, they got together in Connecticut on weekends. In the summer, Bruce and Melanie would visit Jimmy and Karen at their cottage way out on Fire Island.

But now, Jimmy could not recall anything specific about all the time he had spent with Bruce and Melanie. Not a moment. Not a scene. Nothing. He assumed they were surprised when he left Karen and started up with Anne. In time, Jimmy and Anne began to socialize with Bruce and Melanie. Then he went fishing with Bruce and that was it. What on earth was the problem?

He asked Anne if she recalled if Jimmy and Bruce had some sort of issue way back then. He said, “I know I had some sort of problem with Bruce, but I can’t remember what it was.”

Anne said, “The night before you went fishing, we were having drinks at the river house with a few people. Bruce was there. Melanie was away. You were drinking way too much and being just terrible with everyone. Anyway, Bruce hit on me – and the minute he did, I could see him realize how crazy and wrong he was being. I just turned away. I never told you – I knew how important Bruce was to you. Then you went fishing the next day. You never said anything. When we didn’t see Bruce and Melanie any more, I didn’t give it much thought. I had no idea you knew.”

Jimmy said, “I didn’t know. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know what.”

All these years later, Jimmy was shocked Bruce had hit on Anne. She was a beauty and lots of men tried with her – but Bruce was his friend. They had been drinking hard. Jimmy was acting crazy. So Bruce had run his own nut job show. It was sad Jimmy hadn’t known about it. He had never realized how angry Bruce was at him. Now he did.

Bruce was dead. But now, forty-two years after they had parted, Jimmy was back in touch with him.

In the years that followed his parting from Bruce, Jimmy made no new friends. His business was going very well — so he met a lot of new people — but these were business contacts. He loved Anne but their marriage was a very rocky road.

They traveled a lot. Jimmy was succeeding even though his drinking was increasing. One night in New York City, a new business acquaintance turned Jimmy on to cocaine for the first time – and that occasion – when Jimmy was forty-three – changed his life forever.

Jimmy became a cocaine addict on his first toot. It was the first time in his life he felt okay. Actually, “okay” is a frail, sadly insufficient word for how he felt. He felt deep down good. It was a wonderful way to feel.

Three years later, he weighed 132 pounds. He went into treatment at a rehab. He relapsed. His wife organized another Intervention. He did well in treatment but relapsed 52 days out. After he emerged from his third rehab, his wife surprisingly got pregnant. The child was born with a genetic disability and in intensive care for months. Our hero left the second night.

He had a heart attack in rehab four. There was a 3-bed intensive care unit in the little hospital in Wisconsin. He saw his lines go flat on the monitor. A stocky nurse named Ann-Marie punched him in the chest and his heart began to beat again.

Back in Connecticut, they thought it had been a mild heart attack. When they checked via a Catheterization, one of his arteries blew out completely. There was nothing left to bypass.

He kept on using.

Finally, he went to a new fangled rehab in Arizona that approached treatment for addiction as an educational experience for people who had been traumatized early on.

He was there three months. He got good healing. He had two very minor slips and then stayed clean and sober.

Of course, the 12 Steps of AA were at the center of his program. And the result of the 12 Steps was “a spiritual awakening.” But he was way out of touch with God. When he worked his program, he used the entire Membership of AA as “a Power greater than ourselves.”

Looking back, he realized, he had disqualified himself as a God consort, when he was using. Back when he was using, cocaine was his one and only God.

“One and only God” were just words. It seemed to Jimmy that you had to be an addict to know what they really meant. For years, if you had asked Jimmy O’Hara if he would choose his next cocaine run over God, he would have replied, “Absolutely.”

Since he had made that choice again and again over the years, Jimmy had figured his disqualification was permanent. Even though over his years of recovery a spiritual awakening had bloomed and leafed out in him. Even though he often said the 
Serenity Prayer. Even though he joined the Unitarian Church and attended there regularly for years.

Like Lucifer, Jimmy had been cast out. Actually, he had jumped out. It seemed fair.

Now Jimmy realized that what he had accepted as a just verdict was actually the misshapen pronouncement of a crazed addict. And he had borne it – and even occasionally brandished it – all through the years of his recovery.

However, when he got Small Cell Lung Cancer — right before he went under and they cracked his rib cage and extracted the peach sized tumor and the upper lobe of his left lung, he thought the words, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” He felt safe.

He healed from the operation. It was very painful. They had cracked his rib cage. He recovered. They kept running tests. In those days, hardly anyone recovered from this cancer. But Jimmy stayed cancer free. It was a happy surprise.

But Jimmy forgot about how safe he had felt right before they cut him.

He went on with his life and his recovery one day at a time. However, he was still mired in his addiction much, much, more than he knew.

Then came the diagnosis and the yearning for God’s help and the memory of his last time with Bruce and the crimson dawning deep in him of the realization that he was heavy laden and needed rest.

The Last Out

Response
By Greg Lippert

Curtains

Inspiration
By Robert Haydon Jones
©2018 RHJA, LLC. All Rights Reserved

For five years now, every six months, Jimmy O’ Hara would visit his Cardiologist to learn if the latest test showed his aortic valve needed to be replaced and he couldn’t be an umpire any more.

It was a big practice. Today, as always, the office was crowded. There were three receptionists. Jimmy ended up with the middle one. She was a squat, dark-haired, woman in her early fifties. She was 
wearing an outsized, gold plated, necklace with six large onyx stones.

“That’s some necklace,” Jimmy O’Hara said.

“It’s a real beauty. Onyx never looked so good.”

The receptionist raised her chin and looked hard at Jimmy. Then she smiled. The smile transformed her dour face, like sun after rain.

“Well, thank you, Mr. O’Hara. This necklace is from Sicily. It was left to me by my great aunt, Maria. Okay. We’ve got all your paper work. 
Doctor Monroe will see you soon. Have a nice day.”

Jimmy had just opened his Kindle and started in again on Grant when a man called his name.

“That’s me”, Jimmy said.

It was a stocky young fellow in dark blue scrubs holding a clipboard. Jimmy followed him into an exam room and the kid took his BP and 
ran a cardiogram.

Afterward, he crumpled the packing for the leads into a ball and tossed it
 with an easy move into the bin. You could tell he had the good hand/eye.

“You’ve got the good hand/eye”, Jimmy said.

“Did you play baseball? Were you an infielder?”

“Well, I started out an infielder,” the kid said.

“Second base. But I could really run. I was the fastest guy on the team. So, they moved me to center – and that’s where I played for three years. When I was a senior, we won the Double L State Championship.”

“Really? Where did you play?

“Right here in Fairport.”

The kid was in his early thirties. So, 14 or 15 years back, Jimmy might have umpired some of his games.

“Are you playing now?”

“No, I had to work after high school and then I decided to be a nurse and there wasn’t time to do anything but work and study.

Jimmy said, “Well you could be playing now if you want to. There’s an over-25 League that’s going strong. Fairport has a team. Give me your email and I’ll connect you up with the Head Coach.”

The kid jotted down his email and gave it to Jimmy. You couldn’t tell his name from the email.

Jimmy said, “What’s your name?”

The kids’ name was Philip Caruso. He wrote it down. Jimmy told him to write down his phone number too. He did.

“It’s March”, Jimmy said. “The perfect time to get hooked up with a team.”

Philip Caruso thanked him. He had been playing a little soft ball now and then 
over the years but it wasn’t the same. “It’s definitely not the same,” Jimmy said.

About a minute after the nurse left, Doctor Monroe strode into the little room. “James J. O’Hara”, he intoned. “The one and the only.”

Bud Monroe had become Jimmy’s cardiologist fifteen years back when Jimmy’s 
Internist referred him about the palpitations Jimmy was having.

Monroe, a tall, lithe, man in his fifties, with curly blond hair, was a star cardiologist at Yale New Haven. Women still chased him. He had two sons in their twenties. Three years back, he divorced his unhappy wife. Now he had a happy girl friend.

He had managed Jimmy’s arrhythmia brilliantly with a variety of meds. Twice, while on assignment in Europe, Jimmy had called him and Monroe had quickly arranged to get him a new med to deal with a runway heartbeat.

Finally, seven years back, Jimmy had rushed to Monroe’s office in big distress. His heart felt like it would jump out of his shirt. He sank to the floor in the exam room. An ambulance took him to the hospital.

The next day, a “cardio-electrician”, as Monroe called him, administered an 
Ablation procedure and Jimmy’s heartbeat immediately returned to normal. Jimmy’s life without the palpitations coming when ever was so much better he didn’t even realize it mostly — except once in a while — when he thought 
about it.

He had developed a relationship over the years with Doctor Monroe, strictly from his brief times with him in the exam room and in his office. It was not exactly a friendly relationship. Doctor Monroe had been very forthright about his admiration for Jimmy’s wife, Anne.

Dr. Monroe was also Anne’s cardiologist and when he first talked about her to Jimmy, he thought Monroe was kidding. “A stunning beauty, a fascinating intellectual with a great sense of humor.”

Monroe wasn’t kidding. Anne told Jimmy that Monroe had talked to her 
for nearly an hour after he ran her cardiogram. They read the same books. 
They were both very serious about working out. Anne told Jimmy, “You know, I’m maybe 15 years older than he is, but he really loves me. In a good way.”

So, Jimmy trusted Monroe as his cardiologist but he wondered. Every time Jimmy’s Ablation procedure came up, Monroe would say, “Yeah that time you fainted in my office.”

It pissed Jimmy off. He remembered when he got light-headed in Monroe’s office, he worked very, very, hard to stay in control and not faint – so he was 
able to sink slowly down on the floor. Even so, every time the Ablation came up, Monroe would say, “When you fainted in my office.”

Five years back, Monroe had told Jimmy he had a problem with his aortic valve. It was narrowing. They would monitor it with echocardiograms. Jimmy could still umpire if he really wanted to. He should report any incidence of pressure on his chest or dizziness. Dizziness was the main symptom of an aortic valve problem.

So, Jimmy had the echoes’ every six months. His aortic valve kept narrowing but 
Monroe told him he was still good to go “ … if you really want to.”

Jimmy was the oldest active ump in the Umpires Union. So he was assigned only JV and freshman games. Jimmy didn’t mind. He was right where he was supposed 
to be. He loved being an ump. Even if it was a JV game, he loved being on the field
 in the middle of the action.

His family, especially two of his sons who had played for Jimmy forty years back, when he had managed a powerhouse Legion team, kept urging him to quit. 
Jimmy had never understood why his sons had not gone on with the game in college. 
They could have walked on.

“You gotta love it!” That was a phrase Jimmy and his umpire friends would use 
when they were having a tough game in the rain. It said it all for them.

So, now here was Doctor Monroe — Jimmy’s cardiologist and rival. When they had first met, Monroe had commented on the large puckered scars on Jimmy’s chest. 
Jimmy a former Marine, was a small cell lung cancer survivor. At the time, hardly 
anyone survived this cancer. Monroe had pointed to the largest scar and said, “See what happens when a bad ass Marine smokes.”

It pissed Jimmy off. Everyone thought his survival from small cell lung cancer 
had been a miracle. Evidently, Doctor Bud Monroe was not impressed. He told Jimmy he’d heard he was a good baseball coach, “Back when you were young.”

He said he had read two of Jimmy’s short stories and found them “diverting.”

Had he published anything after he turned 70?

Monroe listened to Jimmy’s heart for about a minute, took his BP and told him to get dressed and meet him in his office, just like always.

When Jimmy went into the office, he noticed it was redecorated with new photos and a couple of watercolors. One of the photos was of Babe Ruth standing at home plate in Yankee Stadium in front of a microphone. Ruth was leaning hard on a bat.

A young Mel Allen, the Yankee announcer from back in the day, was on the other 
side of the mike. It was Ruth’s farewell appearance a few weeks before he succumbed to cancer.

“What a great shot,” Jimmy said. “I’ve never seen it before anywhere.”

Monroe was smiling broadly. “Isn’t it great? The photographer was the father of one of my patients. We got talking and a week later, it was delivered to me in the frame.”

“It’s a real treasure”, Jimmy said.

“So,” Monroe said, “Any dizziness or pressure on the chest or difficulty breathing?”

The truth was that Jimmy had been having dizziness issues for a couple of years. Recently, it was getting worse. He worried about what would happen if he got dizzy while driving on the Parkway. The dizziness didn’t last long – just a few seconds.

“No pressure on the chest, no palpitations, no problems breathing,” Jimmy said. “Recently, I’ve had a few, very brief, dizzy moments. Literally just four or five seconds.”

“Well, Jimmy,” Monroe said. “I am advising you to stop the umpiring. I’m not ratting you out with your Union, but I am putting it into my notes in case you drop dead on 
the field and the authorities come and ask me how I could let an old coot with a 
defective aortic valve on the field.”

“Jesus,” Jimmy said. “Really? It’s just a momentary thing.”

“No, Jimmy, we’re talking classic precursors to fainting spells. I’m going to set you up with the Committee that has to approve you for the valve replacement procedure so Medicare will pay for it. They will contact you shortly”

“I can’t believe it,” Jimmy said. “I’m done. Say it ain’t so, Doc.”

“You’re not done, Jimmy,” Monroe said. Your new valve should last a good eight years.”

On the drive home, Jimmy thought it through. Monroe wasn’t telling the Umpire Union Jimmy’s aortic valve was busted. He could book his games for the upcoming season just 
like always.

When he got home, he went straight up to Anne and told her Monroe was booking him with the Review Committee for Medicare approval of the valve replacement procedure. Anne said she was frightened.

Jimmy called his ball player sons and told them they could relax. He was done umpiring. 
He was in the approval process for a valve replacement. His boys sympathized and told 
him they were relieved.

Sean, his eldest, said, “I’m relieved for you Dad — and for the kids. Imagine what it would be like if an old ump croaked right in front of you on the field.”

Jimmy said he had a point.

Later that night at dinner, Anne said, “So, good old Doctor Bud Monroe told you 
he wasn’t going to tell the Umpire Union. Right?”

Jimmy said that was so. Monroe was just putting it in his notes. That was why Jimmy had to tell Anne about it right away.

“What a bastard, “Anne said. “What a freaking bastard.”

“Hey Hey Baltimore” (Music)
By Amy Moffitt
Response

Hello Baltimore
By Kamika Cooper
(Poetry and digital photography)
Inspiration piece

i’ve heard a lot of bad things about you
heard you set them up and leave them to die
never wanted to be anywhere near you
pressed on the gas and sped right on by

you’ve got a nasty reputation
neighborhoods bathed in surveillance blue
streets overflowing with confrontation
no hope left when the night is through

but i’m going to join you on your journey
i hope you welcome me with open arms
let all your hills and your history claim me
let go of the fears and presumption of harm

prove me wrong with my snobby existence
your harbor is the gateway to my ancestry
i know i will fall in love with you in an instant
hello baltimore, are you there? it’s me

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Whereever You Go There You Are
by Amy Moffitt
music and digital photography
Inspiration piece

Here I Am
by Kamika Cooper
Response

here i am but it’s time to go

long before my welcome has worn out
i have packed my bag and made a plan
i don’t have to question the getaway
mine is a calculated departure
beginning in the mind echoed in the heart
and carried by legs and feet
all moving in unison to a new destination

here i am though it’s time to grow

don’t misunderstand me or my way
i may opt to move far from you
but i will never move away from self
you have seen me persevere because
acceptance is the foundation for survival
the notion of giving up is a facade
there is power and strength in moving on letting go

i am here despite the things i know

staying too long leads to complacency
the challenges of this journey are endless
and it is not always easy to rise to them
but trying to control things i cannot change
threaten to drain and deplete me slowly
there’s always a chance to get it right another way
that’s why i never hesitate when it’s time to go

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.