These words, these nightmare words, these furied, banshee shoutings, these harbingers of all things unimaginable and catastrophic. These words no parent dare think about.
Bridger has a heart condition.
Bridger, my little man with the big heart.
His heart, his HEART is sick.
I watched that tiny heart beat on an ultrasound and there was my proof, my proof that I was growing a life.
I trusted that heart to beat beat beat beat beat beat beat. Rythmically, not sporadically, not spastically. Bridger is my calm child, my even keel, my smooth sailing. I expect no less of his synaptic firings and the pitch of his heartrate. At times he's been my pacemaker.
How many times have I blessed his heart? (I'm in love with you, honey / Say you love me too, honey...Loved you from the start, honey / Bless your little heart, honey....)
One of my favorite movies ever is E.T. Bridger too. Bridger, especially, loves the scenes where E.T.'s heart lights up. (I'll be right...HERE.)
Oh honey, my golden sunshine boy, be well.
Update 11/25/09: Bridger's chest x-ray came back and his heart appears to be the right size. (I always thought he had a really big heart but I'm glad to know it's actually normal. We're still waiting to hear back from the cardiology about his EKG.)
Author's note: Nothing in this blog may be used against me in a court of law. So help me God. Also, the contents of this blog may not be suitable for young readers.
So once again I find myself in court. In Wilmington, which is TWO HOURS from Mommytown.
I happen to go to court a LOT for someone who is not a lawyer AND not a criminal. In the last year I've been maybe a dozen times to traffic court (hubby's accident, NOT MINE) and three times to child support court (employee's children, NOT MINE.) Meanwhile I'm ghost-writing for a bankruptcy law firm AND I'm dancing like a star around the Internal Revenue Code so I'm pretty sure at this rate I'm a qualified freakin' paralegal.
Watch while I pass the bar. This is like law school by proxy. In absentia. SEE I EVEN KNOW THE LATIN, BITCHES! I'm a bona fide common-law lawyer.
But uh, back to the lecture at hand....(I'm a rapping lawyer. I hear that gangsta rap is wildly popular among jurors and defendants alike so I thought I'd drop some Dr. Dre on your ass.)
So I'm in child support court for one of my husband's employees who has to have his payments withheld from his paycheck (by me, the world's worst bookkeeper. ENGLISH MAJOR, people! I mean, dawgs!). Without getting all lawyerly on yo ass, I have to be here because it seems I have not withheld enough Benjamins from said paychecks. AND the D.A. in this case is a hater, but I'll get to that later. Tater.
The benches in here are hard and obviously designed for bitches and hos with MUCH more junk in their trunks. I take in my surroundings and decide that this situation calls for live-blogging. I mean, really, this place looks like a casting call for RENT. Except without the drag queens. (Which is regrettable, because I really like drag queens.) The crackheads and babydaddies and hos and tricks here make the folks at the DMV look like Junior Leagers.
So I bust out my laptop in an attempt to live-blog from the scene and am nearly tackled by the bailiff, who informs me that phones and electronic devices are NOT allowed in the courtroom. (But apparently, needles and meth pipes are fine.)
The woman sitting next to me is VERY pregnant and reeks of cigarette smoke. Nice.
Oh yes oh yes oh yes this honorable court is now open and sitting for the dispatch of its business. God save the state and this honorable court. We may be seated, and roll call begins. There are 142 cases on the docket and guess what? My employee's last name begins with Z. It's going to be a long day.
One guy here has five--you heard me--FIVE babymamas here. One of his babymamas is also here as a defendant being sued by two of her OTHER babydaddies. I guess it must have been bumpin' (in the city of Compton.) I mean Wilmington. (But that doesn't have the same ring to it, now does it?)
Lots of people go to jail. Without passing Go OR collecting $200.00.
I guess it don't pay to don't pay. Child support. Now you're probably asking the same question I did--how can they pay if they're locked up? THEY WEREN'T PAYING ANYWAY! Some of these people are $25,000 or more in arrears. (That's legalese for behind. Badonkadonk is gangsta for behind. If you don't know, now you know, niggas.)
(Don't get your thong-th-thong-thong-thong in a wad--that was a lyric by the Notorious B.I.G. I might be a white devil but I refrain from using the N word. Nincompoop. I NEVER say that.)
I'm bored. My ass hurts. AND I forgot to take my happy pills this morning so I'm feeling mildly nauseated and thoroughly irritated. And twitchy. I think I'm in the mood for some motherfucking G-shit. Maybe the preggo trick next to me has some chronic.
A woman wanders into the courtroom and attempts to approach the bench. She appears to be intoxicated. She tries to surrender herself to the bailiff.
There are no warrants for her arrest. She staggers out.
During break, a man in a suit approaches me. He appears to be a lawyer, as the other occupants of the courtroom are wearing Apple Bottoms and Timberland and he is wearing a suit. "What are you doing here?" he asks me.
Despite my thorough indoctrination into hip-hop culture, the result of these many appearances in county courthouses across North Carolina, I apparently fail at looking gangsta. Perhaps it is my suit.
He must not know I'm an undercover common-law lawyer. Word to his mom.
My favorite case of the day gets heard next. The plaintiff/babymama is suing the babydaddy for unpaid child support. Babydaddy can't pay because he has injured his back and leg and therefore cannot earn money as a landscaper, as that profession requires bending and kneeling. Babymama doesn't care that Babydaddy can't work--she wants her money. Babydaddy informs the Court that had Babymamma not RUN OVER HIM WITH HER CAR he would not be injured, unemployed, and unable to pay.
Judge rules in his favor.
After ten hours--honest to God TEN HOURS--in the courtroom I get to swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. The bailiff nearly tackles me again when, after swearing in, I immediately whip hand sanitizer out of my purse (NOT a gat! CHILL, BITCH!). I mean, I've seen all the people who've sworn on that Bible today, and I'm pretty sure even The Word of the Lord can't kill some of THOSE germs.
The District Attorney is mean. He IS the white devil. I've watched him try 141 cases today and it seems he has waited all day to put the smack down. On ME. M to the E. I think he's straight trippin'. I think I'll show some flex when it's my time to wreck the mic but then he cross-examines me like HIS name is Dolomite.
Turns out he drops bombs like Hiroshima. He flipt the script and got lethal on my ass.
Really, any harder a beating would qualify this event as a gang initiation. (Where ARE my motherfucking colors? Do you think they FedEx them? The Cryps? I heard that the Bloods use UPS and that truck has been here already. )
I lose. Kind of. There is a lot of talk about motions and contempt and this DA really seems to want to see me locked up and finally the judge tells us all to just chill... 'til the next episode. I leave without so much as a bandanna for a parting gift--and realize, as I exit the courtroom, that I. Have. To. Cry. NOW. I try to hold it in till I get to my car but I get stuck trying to exit the wrong way though the revolving door and a police officer has to help me and I LOSE IT.
I decide I can never be a real attorney unless there are crying chambers to flee to if I lose a case.
Rebecca Powell is a writer and editor with expertise in blogging, social media, and marketing. She lives in Cary, North Carolina with her husband John, children Bridger and Waverly, and a Golden Retriever named Aslan who can neither fetch nor swim. She has made a second career of managing her children's four hockey teams and is often found with either a cowbell or a glass of shiraz in hand.
A Reality Blog in which I Exploit My Family's Daily Life For Mass Entertainment and Little Profit. This is not a hoax. You may leave your questions in the box.
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