She Taught Me to Breathe

As a child, I suffered with asthma. The strangest things would set off an attack: overheating, anxiety, exhaustion, among other things. Since I was also a teeny tiny thing, all of the Aunts in my family basically just referred to me as sickly, so I tended to stick close to Momma because she was the only one who knew how to help me through my attacks.

And if I have not mentioned it before, we were really poor, so Momma very rarely had an inhaler to offer, so she tended to try to prevent attacks by forcing me to avoid the causes. All the other kids would be running, jumping, playing, fighting, and I'd be sitting right at my Momma's feet; listening to her and the neighbor ladies gossip. But I was hard-heated, and a natural-born tom boy, so there were plenty of times when I'd slip away right after I heard the signal, "Oooooooooooooh, chile, you ain't gonna believe this." That meant something juicy was about to come out, and Momma didn't want me to be in ear shot anyway.

As soon as the speaker took that first deep breath, I would be gone.. . running, jumping, fighting, falling, and the most predictable. . crying. And plenty of times, I can remember that right in the middle of my spurt of running wild, I'd have an asthma attack. It would come on all of a sudden.. not really. I would start wheezing and coughing maybe a full 30 min's to an hour . I could feel my chest tighten up.. but when you're a kid, you kinda have to lose a limb to slow down.

I don't know how she knew it, but right at the moment when I'd find myself falling into a bush gasping for air, there would come Momma. She'd grab me up like a rag doll, and hold me in her arms. She'd look down at me with those calm eyes, and very softly, she'd whisper, "Breathe, Tesha." Then, she would inhale and exhale so deeply my body would rise and fall with the ebb and flow of her chest's movement.

Yeah, it's that easy, right? Well, no.

I'd start crying because I knew that I was taking in my last breath. . my chest would be hurting.. and my face would be tightening up. . I could hear her praying. . I didn't want to scare her.. I just wanted this whole predicament to be over, so I'd always try.. but nothing would come out.

She'd push down on my chest, which hurt like hell - I wonder if she knew that - and much louder, she'd say, "Deeply, deeply breathe. You don't have to be scared."

Well, I was, but this is the woman who NEVER let me down, never gave up, and always pulled me through so I knew that if she was saying that it was as easy as breathing there was something to this thing..

I don't know how it would happen. Somewhere in between her grabbing the rosary out of her bosom, saying a Hail Mary, pounding my chest, steadying her breathing.. somehow my breath would come back.. My chest would still hurt.. and my breathing would not steady for hours. . and the wheezing would last all night long.. but air would seep into my chest at least to the point to where I did not die.

I truly think that in those moments of panic, when I'd be laying there watching my short life flash before my eyes while watching Momma regulate her own breath, she was literally teaching me how to breathe. . which in those moments, was a Herculean task. She taught me over and over again, that even when it hurt, I had to keep on breathing. Even when I thought the last breath was indeed the last breath, I had to keep on breathing. When noone cared that I was over there dying in the bush but her, I had to keep on breathing. When I knew that even if I started breathing, at some point, I'd find myself helpless again, I still had to breathe.

My last asthma attack occurred the day my Momma died, November 6, 2007. I received a phone call with the news, and literally stopped breathing. I don't know if it was an attack, or while I was trying to cope with the news, I just lost the will that she worked so hard to inspire. But as I laid there on the floor, gasping for air - almost wanting it not to return - I felt the ebb and flow of her chest against me. I heard her demanding me to breathe.

And here I am. The daughter of Elizabeth Francois Scott, still breathing.

No "Goodbye Daddy" for me

My Dad is dying of prostate cancer.

It's a frustrating fact that I've known for some time, but the desire to be sad about it became even more intense two days ago when I called to check in on him and his hospice nurse told me that he was so deeply drugged with Morphine that at this point, he has about a couple of days to live.

If it were my Mother, I would've hung up the phone, packed up the kids and the car, and got on the road to Texas. But it's my Dad, and there are obstacle -- really ridiculous, frustrating, hateful obstacles that should not be in my way. . This has just gone too far.

Most Recent History of The Obstacle:

My Dad got really sick just before Thanksgiving. All indications were pointing to eminent death. He was delirious. He weighed in at 85 lbs. He had a crazy high fever. And he could not get out of bed. So, I went to my hometown, Port Arthur Texas, four days before Thanksgiving to be with him. I needed to say goodbye before anything happened to the man that it took me half a lifetime to finally get an audience with. The man I'd day dreamed about as a child, but did not get to know until adulthood.

Going to my Dad's bedside turned out to be a horrible mistake. It killed a lot of childhood fantasies that I'd concocted and held onto into adulthood to hold on to the sense I'd made of my life. For example, while I was at my Dad's home over the Thanksgiving break I learned the following:

• My Dad had acknowledged me to several members of his family (including his late wife), but never to his only son.
• My Dad's son has known of my existence and resented me to the extreme.
• My Dad's son is powerful and mean.
• My Dad's son hates me.

These insights weighed heavily on me. They still do.

As a child, I envisioned a day when I'd be reunited with my Dad, the proud Reverend, and he would bring me into his big, beautiful home to live with his beautiful wife and their son. In this fantasy, my Dad's new family would love me the way I loved them. Why wouldn't they? We all had the same last name, and I look just like him. To a small child, this fantasy made a whole lot of sense.

Of course, in reality, I saw my Dad about 6 times my entire childhood. By the time I turned 18, I had abandoned all hope of him ever wanting to have anything to do with me. That's just the way it was.

Then, a small miracle happened. One that I'd prayed for from as early as I can remember: As I packed the car up to move to Arkansas after graduation, my Dad pulled up in front of my Momma's house and told me that he wanted us to have a relationship. It was a true indication of the goodness of God to a woman with the heart of a girl and the never-ending desire to have her father in her life.

From that day on, me and my Dad have had a really amazing relationship.

• Me and my Dad have talked 4 or 5 times a week on the phone.
  
• I've spent countless nights with my Dad in his home.
  
• My Dad has been an incredible grandfather to my children; especially my sons who love him dearly.
  
• My teenager daughter has spent the summer with him.
  
• I attended his50th class reunion with him and my two uncles; which is one of the highlights of my life (pic of my Dad and his brothers at a reunion event I attended with them)
  

A little late coming, but my relationship with my Dad has been all that I had dreamed of as a child. Even better because he has become my best friend.

Fast forward to today. My Dad is dying and I've decided not to go home and be with him because if I do I'd face a very angry half-brother that will do whatever he can to make sure I feel like the outsider he's determined that I am.

When I was there for Thanksgiving, he said, "I will not spend one moment under the same roof with this woman. I do not know her, and I do not want to know her. She is not my family." Daggers to my heart.

I'm stuck now. I'm hurting because we are in the last days of my Dad's life, and I'm too afraid to return to Port Arthur to tell him goodbye. It would mean that I'd have to face my Dad's son and his look of disgust, and just don't have the strength. I will not let anyone take away the memories we've built over the last 15 years. These wonderful memories that I cling to that warm my heart every time I think of my old man. These wonderful memories that are just not strong enough to erase the childhood of disappointment and grief I suffered as a result of not having my Dad in my life. I just can't let him take the good memories away from me. There are not enough of them to shield me from the bad that wait just underneath.