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<h2 class="itemTitle"> My Mother's Favorite Thing
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Sunday, December 25, 2016 </span>
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By <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/44663">William Rivers Pitt</a>, Truthout | Op-Ed </span>
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<div class="itemFullText"><p><span class="wf_caption" style="display: block; max-width: 640px; width: 100%;"><img src="http://www.truth-out.org/images/Images_2016_12/2016_1225christmas.jpg" alt="(Photo: musicFactory lehmannsound)" style="width: 100%; margin: auto;" width="640"><span style="text-align: left; margin-top: 3px; display: block;">(Photo: <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-focus-of-red-and-green-berries-fruit-235202/" target="_blank">MusicFactory Lehmannsound</a>)</span></span></p><p>In contemplation of a new Christmas, I offer a true tale of redemption and hope.</p><p>When I was a boy, my mother owned a white MGB convertible. It looked
like a bullet carved out of cream cheese, sounded like an earthquake and
moved like a cheetah when she put it through its paces on Commonwealth
Avenue. She was a law student at the time, and the inside of the car
looked like a bomb went off in a courtroom: papers everywhere, legal
textbooks stacked on the floor, yellow legal pads overflowing with
outlines crowding the trunk. It was her favorite thing.</p><p>Late one night, a Boston College student suffering from severe
emotional and addiction issues came walking down our street with a can
of gasoline and a pack of matches, looking for a place to die. He found
my mother's car sitting unlocked in the driveway, let himself in, and
closed the door. He covered himself with the tweed coat she had left on
the passenger seat, poured the gas, and popped a match. I woke that
night to the sound of engines and the sight of red lights heliographing
across my ceiling. Every fire truck in the world was in front of my
house. The MGB was on fire from bumper to bumper in the driveway. Three
firefighters were holding up the back end while a fourth put the hose to
the gas tank. They beat the flames back eventually, and it sat there on
four melted tires hissing like a scalded cat. My mother's favorite
thing looked like something that had fallen from space.</p><p>One of the firefighters pried open the door. The car was empty. Well, almost empty.</p><p>Inside was a massacre of paper: Books incinerated, legal pads soaked
beyond recognition, everything destroyed. This was a multi-tiered
disaster because my mother's law school finals were right around the
corner. A law student without outlines is a chef without a kitchen. The
only things to survive the conflagration were a slightly charred book on
torts and her stout old Black's Law Dictionary. Eventually, they hauled
it away, leaving only a black scorch mark on the pavement and some
heat-twisted coins on the lawn. Everything else was gone.</p><p>One week later to the day, just after dark, there was a knock on our
front door. My mother opened it to find a scruffy young man standing
there with his head down. "Can I help you?" my mother asked. The man
pointed his finger at the two charred books on the floor of the entryway
-- the survivors of the fire we'd left there because they still reeked
of the blaze -- and said, "I'm responsible for this."</p><p>She brought him into the kitchen, sat him down, and got his story. As
it turns out, he was living with severe depression, and had been
self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. His whole life had collapsed
around him, and came to my mother's car fully intending to die by his
own hand. When the first flames kissed his skin, however, he fled. He
was there that night to confess, and to have my mother deliver him to
the police. He sat at our table awaiting his fate.</p><p>My mother looked him up and down, got his information, and told him
to get out. "Come back here in one week," she said. "Don't make me have
to find you." He walked out in a daze, like someone on the executioner's
stage whose headsman had forgotten the axe. During that intervening
week, my mother consulted with family, friends, medical professionals
and even a priest trying to decide what to do.</p><p>A week later, the man returned, and found himself once again in our
kitchen. My mother handed him the name and number of a psychiatrist
affiliated with his school, and then delivered her demands. You will go
see this person, she told him. You will get into treatment, and you will
complete that treatment. I don't have to tell you what will happen if
you don't follow through on this. He walked out of our house that night
with a look on his face like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer made of
Silly Putty.</p><p>The man entered and completed treatment. His condition was diagnosed
and dealt with. He overcame his substance abuse issues. Not long after,
he moved to Chicago and opened a series of clinics designed to help
disadvantaged children living with the same conditions he himself had
endured. We got gushing Christmas cards from him for a number of years,
but eventually he faded away into the new fate he had found, beginning
at our kitchen table.</p><p>My mother passed her law school finals. She replaced the cream cheese
MGB with an older red version that had three windshield wipers, but
eventually retreated into the safer realm of Hondas and Subarus. Years
later, the scorch mark was still visible in the driveway the day she
sold the house. I still see MGBs on the road from time to time, and I
always wince a little. Dammit, I say to myself, that would have been
mine someday.</p><p>The feeling passes quickly, and instead I contemplate the filaments
of hope, healing and redemption spiraling out from that moment in the
kitchen. My mother helped him, he helped himself, and went on to help
others, who helped others, who helped others. There is no accounting for
the number of lives that have been positively affected by that one
selfless act.</p><p>Think on this today, if you will. These are grim times to be sure,
but within reach of your arm is the capacity to do more simple good than
you can possibly imagine. Nothing stops; the ripples from an act of
kindness or courage extend ever outward. Throw the rock into the pond
and see where those ripples go. The life you save may be your own.</p><p>Merry Christmas.</p> </div>
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