Rt. #16 Bee-Line Bus Memoirs:
The Elderly Woman and the Metal-Green Walker Pt. II
It was a rough day dealing with some customers with nasty attitudes that
would rather I lose my job than read the back of their coupons. It was rough because I was dealing with
so many thoughts that day and they were running through my head all at once. At home I had some things going on and was
trying my best to cope with them all together. A few weeks before that day, I had a car accident and
totaled the car without hurting myself or anyone else, thankfully. Only a week after the car accident I expected
my father home from surgery and in good health. Instead two days after having surgery in his left leg and
after doctors told me he’d be better than ever with little or no extra nursing
when he arrived home, I received a phone call at five o’clock the next morning. The doctor said to me, “Mr. Claxton, your
father was pronounced dead at 4:54 am this morning.” He was 58 years old, and my little brother’s flight from
California to New York landed 15 minutes after our father passed away. I couldn’t get the picture of my
father’s face tensed in pain with tubes stuffed down his throat out of my head.
The day was longer than it seemed and I was ready to go home. I was not in the mood to speak with anyone
about anything. I just wanted to
get on the bus and get home as quietly and unbothered as I could. I left my associates with a goodbye as
I usually do, and they were unaware of all the things I was holding onto in my
head and in my heart. They said
goodbye and told me to hurry so that I didn’t miss the bus, and hurry I did. I ran up the stairs trying not to drop
all that I had in my hands, and continued to the exit where the #16 Bus makes
its last pick up at 9:50pm.
The bus was already there but I was safe because there were people still
boarding. I walked over, boarded
the bus, and I paid with my Metro Card.
As I picked up my head to scan the bus and figure out where it was I was
gonna sit that night I saw Mrs. Holly sitting about three seats back from the
front of the bus. She had her metal
green walker and many bags from different stores. She smiled and said hello to me. I smiled back and said, “Hello Mrs. Holly.” She asked me, “You tired? You look
tired? You’s a young boy why you look so tired?” With a slight smile I said to
her that I was a bit tired and had some things on my mind. I can remember trying to erase whatever
it was I was thinking about that instant hoping she wouldn’t feel as if she
were bothering me. In my own way I
was relieved she had noticed I was down.
It spoke to the attention she gave me, and her intuition. I sat next to her. After settling into my seat I looked at
her and asked her in a low voice, “So what’s goin’ on with you Mrs. Holly? I ain’t seen you in awhile.” She sighed, looked around as if she didn’t
want to share her story with the rest of the bus, looked at me and almost in a
whisper she says to me, “I just came back from Syracuse.” I asked her what she was doing up
there, and what she was about to tell me next took me out of my head and into
my heart.
Mrs. Holly had just come back from Syracuse visiting her granddaughter
and her great granddaughter. She
had been up in Syracuse in the hospital for the past two weeks. Her granddaughter flipped the car eight
times with Mrs. Holly in the passenger seat, her granddaughter driving, and her
great granddaughter in the baby seat.
Her great granddaughter was only months old at the time. Mrs. Holly said
it was amazing and God’s will that the baby never left the baby seat and didn’t
have a scratch. She was thankful
she told me. However, Mrs. Holly
suffered some broken ribs, a broken wrist, and some more bumps and bruises to
go with. She said her neck and
shoulder was burned from the seatbelt.
She said her granddaughter was fine but needed to wear a neck brace for
a little while until her neck and back was better and healed from the
accident. I was in awe. She let out a sarcastic laugh as if she
couldn’t believe it herself. She
kept repeating to me that she couldn’t believe the baby didn’t have a
scratch. She repeated to me a few
times, “Ain’t dat something, the baby didn’t have a scratch. I gots some broken
ribs. God bless her soul, ain’t
dat something?” I expressed how
amazed I was that she was sitting and telling me the story only 2 weeks after
the accident. I asked her if she
was in pain and Mrs. Holly explained to me that she was in a little bit of pain
that day but it was no more than what she goes through on a regular basis. I was confused. I asked her what she meant by that and
she told me that she has cancer.
She proceeds to tell me that she has cancer throughout her body. She tells me that after the accident
the cancer spread into her neck, back, and while she’s telling me she’s
signaling to all the places the cancer has caused her grief and pain. She can hardly move that well but still
she tries to point down to her lower legs and feet. She tells me that she gets cancer treatments weekly and that
it makes her tired. She said her
bones hurt. Again, I was in
awe. She said that she needed the
treatment and it was the only thing keeping her alive, and it was the only
thing killing her. I was
speechless. I could see the
discoloration of her skin and patches of brown wrinkled skin that were darker
than other parts of her face. She
pointed to the patches and told me, “Look, you don’t see what its doin to
me?” She was so comfortable with
telling me and so confident it seemed, I was struck by her strength and her
will. I told her I that I could
see the patches on her skin. Her
hands were three times darker than parts of her face. Also, I could see where the cancer treatment or the cancer
itself had caused deformities to her in her lips. It looked as if she had a fat lip on the left side of her
mouth and one of her eyes was not as wide open and as beautiful as the
other. I said nothing and only
listened. She continued to tell me about her hospital stays and how she had to
wait to return home because the hospital in Syracuse would not release her
until she was better. Finally I
said to her, “Mrs. Holly, how do you do it?” She told me she didn’t know and that she had plenty things
in life she dealt with before her cancer that were more painful.
Immediately I asked her what could
have been more painful than the cancer and the car accident. She looked back at me and said losing
my son. I cringed as if the
question should have never been asked.
She asked me if I remember her grandson, the big autistic man that
entered the store time to time. I
told her that I did. She said that
his father – her son - committed suicide.
She told me that he shot himself while home one day. She said to me, “He ain’t wanna live no
mo’” She explained he was a good man and that she believed it was partly the
reason her grandson was the way he is today. She said her grandson didn’t say a word for years, and that
she was the first person he ever spoke to after his father’s death. He was in the house when his father
took his own life. She said that
the mother was no good and abusive to her grandson and reassured me that when
her son was alive he would stop the mother from abusing their son. She said the boy, who was now a man,
would not have been as troubled and quiet if her son had been around today. She told me that her son would of never
let that happen. She expressed
that she believes the wife was the reason her son took his life. I passed no judgment and could only
sense the tragedy she explained.
She told me how he did it.
Mrs. Holly was the one to find him after taking a potion of his head off
with a shotgun. All I could think
was: how could a mother find her son in such a way? How could she cope with
life herself after that? She
seemed to be at peace with it and explained that she loves her grandson who she
cannot have a conversation with but cooks him pancakes because that is what he
likes to eat, pancakes. She
explained that her grandson wouldn’t eat for months after the father took his
life until Mrs. Holly started feeding him pancakes, and now that is all he will
eat for the most part. She told me
that family and caretakers would call and complain to Mrs. Holly that her
grandson would not talk and he would not eat, and that they refused to keep
cooking him pancakes as she suggested.
They would tell her that it wasn’t any good for a little boy to eat
pancakes all the time and that he could not survive on those alone. The autistic man is now in his 40s and
has lived on pancakes, bacon, and sometimes some eggs since he was a child
thanks to Mrs. Holly. The man is
big too, not obese at all. He is a
big, tall, strong man, and not a being I would want to wrestle with
honestly. I sat, listened, and I was
in awe.
Mrs. Holly told me so much during the bus ride I couldn’t help but to
think about her life and mine and think of all the blessings her and I were
given. She had a hard life. She explained her aunt was 98 years old
and still alive. She said that her
aunt often called her and told her to come visit. She told me that her aunt was one of twenty children and the
only one left. Mrs. Holly
explained that all twenty children came from the same man her grand mother’s
first husband. Mrs. Holly laughed
when she told me her grandmother remarried after that. She says to me, “Can you believe
that? Remarried after twenty
children.” I looked back at her
shaking my head and laughed with her. I told her that it was beautiful having
twenty children but it must have been hard. Really, I couldn’t imagine. Mrs. Holly explained that she was one of three children and that
she had a good life, her and her sisters.
She explained that they were raised in the Carolinas and that she had to
ring chicken’s necks when she was eight and let them dance until they were
dead. She laughed at the look on
my face. She said that her
grandmother used to whoop her with a wet iron chord but that was not the worst
of it. She said that the worst
part was how her grandmother used to hold them tight between her legs while she
did it. She expressed that holding
her between her legs was worse than getting the wet iron cord: go figure. She laughed again and expressed that
she had a good life though when she thought about it.
All I could think of was the pain and the hurt a person can endure in
life and how amazing Mrs. Holly was to sit and share hers with me. To sit and trust me with her story was
a blessing in of itself. She
was/is a show of strength to me, and she is a reminder to remember the gifts
that God has given me to the day.
She is a reminder of pain and happiness wrapped in a person and how the
human soul can still be lit by sparks of spirituality. She reminds me that complaining will
get me nowhere, and that looking down on myself and self pity are sin. Mrs.
Holly reminds me that feeling sick, is not a reason to be sick, and that being
sick, is not a reason to feel sick.
She is a testament of strength.
How can I be as strong as she?
Will I ever have the courage and the will to carry on as she does every
day? She reminds me that prayer
and gratitude will move my feet and fill my heart. Quite honestly she said so much to me that day on the bus
that I was moved in so many ways and touched beyond belief I tried my best not
to tear and in front of her. I was
successful in that I did not cry outright, but inside I cried joy and pain for
her like I haven’t in a long time.
Mrs. Holly is a person I will never forget as long as I live and will
always hope to see again. Knowing
that her days are numbered I often worry about her and if I will not know when
she has left us. However I know
that when she does leave the physical she will be in goods hands and she will
look down on me and remember the talks we had. She’ll remember the young man that listened, the young man
that paid close attention, the young man that sat next to her on the #16 bus.
Hello Universe, 
