Max

Visited my son Max in the hospital in Bellingham today.  Didn't want to go.  Age forty-one, landed in ICU with infection gone septic, the second time two years.  Dirty needle drug use. This time a blood clot in the heart and lungs.  He may be in there for several weeks.  Severe back pain, whimpers, and cries repositioning his frail frame in the bed.  Hate to see your kid in pain. Hate to see your kid strung out on heroin.

Sitting in that room, not a hundred feet from the place he saw his first light in this world I tried to superimpose that round red newborn face, eyes wide open on the way out, ready to take on the world over the too soon aged face, sunken eyes of the broken man he has become.  One weeps.