Chapter 2: No More Tears
Before the Accident
This is an exerpt from my No More Tears Book, coming soon on Amazon!
Age 4
My eyes widened as I saw them together.
The brother and sister cats licked themselves in the sun, bellies up, no care in the world.
They thought they were little people stuck inside of a cat’s body. I was going to make them look like really smart people. The gray one with white was Fluffy, and the pure gray one was Mattie. Today, I would dress them up in yellow with glasses, then put them in their best blue bucket, then climb up the ladder, and put them on the slide.
They would slide down the slide, making funny faces and sticking their tongues out, giggling all the way down. I would do this over and over again, just like yesterday. There was nothing else that I wanted to do. That’s all I wanted, and that’s what the whole day was all about.
Together, we would laugh and play the day away.
Medical School at USC
As a medical student, Internal Medicine intern, and Anesthesiology resident at USC School of Medicine, I worked over 100 hours a week.
I was on call every third night, worked holidays and weekends, and volunteered as Vice President of the Los Angeles County—USC Medical Center House Officer’s Association (HOA) representing all 1,200 interns, residents, and fellows in training.
It was the largest inpatient hospital in the world.
One of my biggest accomplishments was getting a “bat phone” installed in the ER so they could do STAT head CT scans without waiting in line. Before that, trauma patients, especially those with a head injury, died in the hallway.
I also protected the house staff housing, free meals, and a swimming pool, all of which were administratively lost after I left office.
All the way through medical training, I was also a single parent of one hell of a loving son, and together we made it through each day. I got no child support or alimony. Nothing.
He had to grow up a bit fast and learn to cook and do laundry, later joining the Navy after 911. And he became an awesome chef.
One day, I started USC medical school and it seemed that on the next day, I rejoiced by throwing up my hat in the air.
Internship
The next day, I drew the short straw and ended up as an intern in the big county hospital’s Jail Ward.
I don’t like being locked up or locked in.
Freedom can be breathtaking, and we learned that each day going into Jail Ward was going to be met with a very warm welcome at leaving it.
Sometimes the inmates would come in to the 13th Floor County Jail (CJ) in orange prison suits, chained to one another by the ankles.
They shuffled into the elevator, shuffled out, and walked by a lineup of Sheriffs that did an awesome and outstanding job of protecting us.
In the beginning, I thought both they and the LAPD were too harsh to inmates, sometimes landing them on the floor restraining their arm up their back. I almost spoke up the first time, but quickly realized this was a different culture, a different world.
On the first day’s orientation, the director told us that if any of the inmates took one of us hostage, we would be in “lock down.”
We looked at one another and gulped. We resigned to just literally survive the month and walk out of there alive.
Age 6: Glistening in the Moonlight
Sheriff John was a Sheriff. He had his own show in the Los Angeles area, and we watched him and his puppets. He wore a shiny badge, shiny boots, a brown cowboy hat that covered up all his hair, and a Sherriff ’s golden buckle.
I never saw his hair.
Every week on television he would sing,
“Put another candle on my birthday cake,”
as a yummy carousel cake spunaround, and the camera went in for a close up.
There were lions and tigers and bears on the carousel. Roar!
They spun around and around, as if dancing in their own world, oblivious to the rest of us. They were only focused on going up and down, down and up, chasing one another around and around. They were majestic each in their own way.
Royal.
I closed my eyes really, really tight and I literally thought that if I closed them hard enough and “thought” extra hard, I could turn into one of those gorgeous animals.
And so, I did it.
I closed my eyes and I blinked just like that Genie on TV that has a cute little home in a bottle with red draperies, black bedsheets and golden tassels all about. I closed my brown eyes and I thought so hard that I expected to open my eyes and literally be inside the body of a great lion.
My eyes crinkled.
At first, I could feel nothing.
After a time, I could definitely feel my tail growing, and I thought,
“It must be almost time to open my eyes!”
I scrunched my eyes more now, as I wanted to make sure that nothing would be missing.
I wanted to be sure as ever that my teeth would be long and sharp, that my claws would glisten in the moonlight.
“There has to be nothing better than glistening in the moonlight,”
I thought, momentarily forgetting that I was still a girl.
My mouth cracked a gentle smile as again, my tail was starting to come out. I waited for it to grow full and sassy, still tightly crunching my eyes.
Now I thought I was ready to open my eyes, without getting it wrong.
Certainly, I was on the right track. Ever so painfully slowly, I opened my eyes.
At first, they ached from squinting so hard in my fervent prayer. I saw the light of day as they opened, and there he was again!
I glared closer, disbelief covering my entire body.
Now Sheriff John was reading from a piece of paper!
“Wait!,” I thought, “I’m not supposed to know what a piece of paper is!”
My eyes began to blur as the first tears started forming.
“I must not be a lion!”
I shockingly reflected.
He wouldn’t stop to care about my plight.
“Linda, Joanne, Sarah, Tom, Edward, and Brian! Wishing you all a Happy Birthday!” said Sheriff John, happy as could be, as if nothing else was as important, completely missing my predicament.
I was disappointed, hurt, and well, I was sad. I was shocked.
“How come it didn’t work? I can’t believe it didn’t work!”
I was already six years old, the smartest one in my class, and I got Gold Stars on my tests!
What did I do wrong?
I sunk in the living room sofa. I cried big tears of reality and disappointment.
And I learned, as we all do, that I couldn’t just change into a lion whenever I wanted to.
I kept it to myself until just now.
I’m only telling you because I know you won’t tell anyone else.