Chapter 60

It's pretty strange, this life thing.  Big boy of scalding anger, the one who fights first and asks questions later calls me "Sir" and moves deferentially, intentionally deflated, in my presence.  A yogini, a teacher of Bhakti I think, or maybe Dharma, and a habitue of Diamond Mountain and acquaintance of Geshe Michael Roach, tells me what's up without really telling me.  My sisters track me down.  I've made that difficult, but not impossible, so they do it.  My mother lies dying from a fall she would have shrugged off were she not eighty-eight.  My mother, Queen of don't make waves, allowed too many things.  To happen.  To boy me.  But I never understood.  Maybe I do now.  I whisper in her ear "I forgive you.  I'm sorry.  I love you."  My sisters say she told them to tell me she was sorry for what she had not done and that she forgave me.  Last week, before words fled her lips.  This time I go, and she says her last words.  "The World is beautiful."  Two more days and no more words.  A clock, mainspring unwinding.  It takes a long time.  I call the school.  Big boy attacked some adults, staff I presume, and will be shipped out to a residential therapeutic program.  Shit.  I see a friend I haven't seen in many years.  It's all so emotional.  I cry, he puts his arm over my shoulder and just sits.  I feel better afterward.  I still do.