"My Sperm Passed Away Today"

You can live with someone all your life yet they end up being just, a sperm.

  I was born in 1950. Before the time of Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best.

Once television became big and expanded with family shows, no doubt we all compared

our own homes to those of the Cleavers and the Youngs.  I would venture to say,

9 out 10 fathers went to work everyday making the family money while the mothers

stayed home making the dinner. 

  In our home, we were no different. Our mother cooked, cleaned, shopped, and

of course ran us from baseball to dancing and all other activities.  This father was

involved with my brother and scouting, other than that, I rarely remember him

being involved in daily activities. Only mother.

  Gosh, the great Birthday's, Christmas, and other holiday's welcomed by our family

seems straight out of Norman Rockwell. As I began to mature the thought of my

family being disfunctional was not on the horizon. Ask me if in 1960 we were the

Cleaver family and I would answer "Yes" without hesitation.  It would be in the

later 1980's before I realized my family was just as normal as other's and was

absolutely not the Young's or the Cleaver's.  We were, An American Family.

  The bread winner went off in his own entrepeanur direction to make a fortune

for the family instead of sticking with a company and waiting on that pension.

Pension, who needs that when I am so young and vital and can make money on

my own. Money was made, but spent like water.  As for money, in 1970, it was

not high on the list of importance. As long as the roof was over the head and

food in the kitchen it was of no interest. But sooner than later it came to

the family attention, the sperm had a spending problem. Not on alcohol or

drugs, but yet junk and tools and anything he felt he needed. Want to buy

a business, buy it. Of course in time if your not putting in more than your

spending, you will eventually greet proverty or at the very least hard times.

  During our youth, both my brother and I felt we were given good traits and

values. High morals and Christian faith ever present in our home, helped 

both of us to have extreme highly appreciated work ethics as adults; borderline,

work-a-holics. Both loved our professions and worked hard to be over-achievers

in our given trades. Pulling from the years in the Air Force, my brother would

be of a technical background, while I went in the sales direction, both being

extremely successful. Both began having our own Cleaver families.

  One day our mother had a heart attack and we were summoned to the table

we shared so many times for family dinners. But instead of dinner, we were met

with a gun. For five hours we saw a gun in our face and the devil sitting

across from us. It wasn't enough to be in shock from the gun, but the words

coming forward knocked us to our knees. We were told how much we were

hated. Hated by the sperm from the day we were born. Shock, hurt, scared,

confused, unbelievable, all describe our feelings. Funny but until that day,

the devil was a mystery to me but afterwards a picture with big red eyes

and long tail seem fitting. I actually saw the flames appear around him.

   As we handled the situation as the Cleavers would, moving forward in time,

ever present in the mind was the clear picture of the horned one.

   Going through ones life, of Christian faith, we all learn to forgive. So forgiveness,

was in our heart but never did we forget in our minds. Happy Days, joined the

television shows and our children lived much like the show. We had teens and

tweens. Faithful to our parents, we had loving dinners, holidays, vacations, and

simple spur of the moment, bacon, lettues, and home grown tomato sandwiches.

The Cleaver's lived on.  They lived a lie until 2007.  In 2007 the curtain came down.

    My brother battled the curse of cancer and lost his fight in February of 2008.

This loving and Godly man was my friend and my brother. We always would take

on the evil one together.  My mother was my best friend, as so my daughter. But my mother could not take the passing of her baby boy. In October of 2008, the evil

one placed her in a nursing home, with Alzheimers.

  Of course if we were the Walton Family on Little House On The Prairie, that

could never happen. The Walton's we were not. Instead, I received a phone call

one day.  Sadly I was informed the office was holding a box and some papers

which had been dropped off. The box was my mothers urn. I almost dropped the

phone. It appeared, she continued, he had divorced her and sold the family home,

dropped off her urn, and informed the social worker, he was no longer to be

called, as he was no longer responsible. Further, he had been stealing her money

from the Medicare and Medicaid and leaving the nursing home empty handed. The

social worker continued that several months were not paid to them for my

mothers care. The evil one, has vanished. Leaving nothing behind. Not one item

of family history. After 67 years of marriage and deserting her after she had

loved him all her life, what does this say about marriage and family.

   Before my brother went to be with his Lord, he told me the way he got

through that day of the gun, "when he walked out the door afterwards,

that was the day his father died."  So, for the rest of his life, my brother,

considered his father dead. Today, I just consider him to be a sperm!

I am now my mothers guardian and I shall hold her hand and walk with her

to the gates of heaven. This terrible disease has only one good thing I

can consider, she is unaware he has abandoned her after living a lifetime with

him. 

  The other day while visiting with my mom, I looked into her eyes and had

a thought.  When we look at each other and she draws me close and gives

me a kiss and tells me how much she loves me, I know in 1950 when they

placed me in her arms after my birth, she nor I would think or know,

but in 2010, God would place her in my arms to hold and take care of,

as she did for me in 1950.

  I Love and Thank You Mom, for being June Cleaver all my life.

Thank you God, for letting her still remember me as her loving and

caring baby girl. I am now in her mind, back to being her young

child. I pray everyday for My God to be merciful.

SK Covey