1:26:25
There's nothing like a brush with mortality
to teach you to appreciate life.
1:26:29
A little bite of death
can help you grow up real quick.
1:26:35
Mom got out of the hospital a few days later.
1:26:38
She walked with a limp for a while.
About a month later she was back at work.
1:26:43
She tried to quit smoking
and for a little while, she did.
1:26:47
Then I came back for spring break
a day early and there she was....
1:26:54
We had a couple of pretty good years
after that.
1:26:57
I visited her most every weekend.
1:27:00
We'd play gin rummy or talk politics
until all hours.
1:27:04
Had a bucket-Ioad of laughs,
as she liked to say.
1:27:19
Mom?
1:27:34
Then one night...
1:27:37
she stopped laughing.
1:27:50
I will never forget
and always regret the choice I'd made.
1:27:55
The memory of that night
out on the Old Ridge Road never faded...
1:27:58
and grew dreamlike, as I expected it would.