Cough/Cool

My week has been punctuated by violent, wracking coughs. It's interrupted my ability to work, my ability to create, and my ability to be present, especially for my children.

My oldest one is worried about me. He looks at me with concern, runs into the room when he hears a coughing fit, asks me 'Momma, are you alright?'

I look into big brown eyes and furrowed brow, sadness and worry evident. I remember waking up almost nightly since I was 5, listening to coughs overtake my mother, her hacking up phlegm and asking me for a glass of ice water. Starting the morning with a cigarette.

I used to throw away her cigarettes, break them, pour her beer down the sink, look at her with brown eyes and furrowed brow, worried and concern. 'Are you okay, Mommy?'

She said yes, she was fine.  Always fine. Every time I asked her, every time I said maybe she should go to the doctor. Eventually, I stopped asking, growing used to the sound, finding my new normal. This. Second hand smoke, arguments and pain.

She died of pharyngeal cancer a few years back.

'Momma, are you alright?'

Yes honey. I'm fine. I'm alright, and I'm going to the doctor's Monday morning. I'll be fine.

I will make sure I'm fine, because you and your brother don't deserve to grow up that way.