A (re)telling of a Mo tale

The summer of 2010 was time of great emotional stress for my family. I thought I had written about it but perhaps I needed some distance from living it to it becoming a historical narrative before I could process everything. There was a lot of ups and downs but one story has become Mighty Mo lore at our family table and worth a mention here.

I suppose there was some point in our lives where Mistress and I thought telling these stories were self-serving.  We long ago removed our ego or thought of personal praise or reward in telling these simply because what we witness as daily living is to others if not a childlike miracle than a deep well of empathy and emotional intelligence and understanding that is wholly disproportionate to a child who has lived less than eight years. My only term to describe it is a gravity that draws people to him in a way unlike any overt convention of charisma or charm.

As I said the early summer of 2010 was rough on the family. Mo was having some really horrible side effects from his advancing auto-immune disease. He has been on drugs since the day he was born and this current panel had started to become ineffective. For a few weeks we sat and discussed with doctors true quality of life issues and quantity of life. Discussing the removal of large portions of his liver and intestines and wearing a colostomy bag at 7 years old as the best case scenario and maybe not making it to 12 years old at all, it becomes overwhelming.

Luckily by mid summer we were able to try some experimental drugs for his age and cleanse out his system so that his liver no longer resembled that of a 40 year of alcoholics and his body could handle his daily meds once again. This meant a move to more powerful drugs for his daily requirements as well.

Now earlier in 2010, my grandfather (mom’s dad) moved in with my parents.  We had never really interacted but was a welcome addition to our dynamic. Mo would spend not hours, but significant time nevertheless, sitting with his great grandfather and talking about all sorts of topics that people separated by 80 years of life could.

In the middle of summer, he started to enter his final stages of life and my parents were forced to put him into assisted living. Over the two weeks he was there before passing he was more comfortable but sleeping more and interacting less with the world. My mom and Mistress would go there almost daily to sit and talk hoping that he would hear the words.  Mo did not ask, he demanded, insisted on going.

After on sitting he and Mistress were walking out of the room and Mo asks if there were people like great grandfather in the other rooms like other kids in the other rooms when he is at the hospital.  Mistress said yes. Mo asks if their mommy’s and daddy’s come to see these people like at the kids hospital.  Mistress had to explain that these people here are old and all their mommy’s and daddy’s died a long time ago.

Mo asks who then comes to see these people, if their mommy’s and daddy’s don’t and Mistress explains that if they are lucky a relative will come to see them like he does with his great grandpa. Mo looked up at his mom and says, “I think I am going to talk to some of them when I come back tomorrow since their family can’t.”

Sure enough, the next day after Mo had sat with his great grandfather, holding his hand, talking about Star Wars and interesting things to a soon to be first grader, he walked out of the room and into the room next door. He walked to the side of the bed of a man he did not know and was not awake. He reached out, held the persons hand and introduced himself.  He then sat and just spoke for several minutes about his day and hoped he was okay.  This repeated two more times.

None of them acknowledged Mo and he seemingly did not care. Hopefully, these people could hear at least something that was being said to bring them some comfort. Maybe thinking that a grandchild had finally come to see them.   

It took all of his mothers ability to not cry, several of the nurses on staff lost their resolve once they realized this little boy was walking from room to room of his own accord.  His great grandfather passed a few days later.  Whatever becomes of Mo, it will always be known he was boy of deep empathy.