My Mom, Becky Jean, died on this day 15 years ago. One wonders who she would be today, and would she recognize her son? Becky Jean raised twin boys by herself, before the man who became my father came along. We were stereotypically poor, living off of government cheese & a prayer

Becky Jean. Cosmetologist, red nails and long blonde hair. Ashtrays brimming with the lipstick kissed Misty's & Pall Malls which would take her life at 43. The women who cared for her during that long comatose hospice stay took their cigarette breaks outside the door.

The irony, too much to bear, I just buried my head in an old Stephen King book I found lying around, in-between reading the Gospel of John to her, in her slumber. Sometimes a lady would come and play the harp.

It was the summer after Bible college. 22. I had no prospects. No Churches wanted me. Saddled with student debt I wondered if I had made a mistake and derailed my life. I wondered if I had heard God wrong. I spent that summer in the hospice with my Mom. Church made her weep.

One Sunday I decided to visit my Uncle's rather conservative Church. All I had to wear was the Harley Davidson shirt I had on at the hospice. After Church a 'lil tie wearing fascist threw a football at my back. I think God sees you in the midst of the thin and sparse.

Mom and Dad were Bikers. Dad still rides his '79 Shovelhead. He's on his way to Sturgis as I write. Mom rode a '69 Triumph Sprint...modified. Both were Red. Some bikers wear denim vests over their leather, an all American blue sky backdrop for patches.

Bikers wear their beloved dead on them. On their very person. And I wear my Mother on mine. A black and gold patch with a cross, the years she sojourned earthbound, and the words "RUNN'N FREE"

When somebody dies you realize that
nothing matters.
Everything matters.

What's lost to her child is the chance to know her as she really was, rather than the way my foggy memory paints her.

I know she loved her boys. She could shoot a deer with her Kentucky long rifle and butcher it. We ate a lot of venison. She sewed dresses out of buckskin.

Wove baskets. Made jewelry. Instilled a love of reading in her boys. Was fearsome and fiery. Her fingers dripped with turquoise. She drove a gold '79 Thunder Bird. We sang all the Rock classics, her backseat chorus.

She'd like the garden I planted this year.

Becky Jean.
1962-2005.
Running Free.