It was 1998. Seems like a lifetime ago and I guess it was. Clinton was our President. I was attending graduate school. The funds in my 401K were rising rapidly. Gasoline cost $1.25 a gallon. Years ago.
My mom collapsed one afternoon when an aneurysm in her brain ruptured. Subarachnoid hemorrhage. Crainiectomy. She remained comatose for more than a month. It was during the summer when the papers printed Starr's report. I read it to my mother (even the part about the cigar), paragraph after paragraph, because after spending weeks talking to a silent body I ran out of material. That's what I remember from the summer of '98 - Starr's report, drinking Ensure to replace the calories I was no longer consuming, the sounds when you suction a tracheotomy, a race for homerun King and counting the seconds between mom's breaths.
