Grace Almost Dies

Around 6:30 p.m. on Labor Day she knocks on my back door. When I open it her face is black and red with a huge gash in it, stiched up, and there is blood all over her clothes and she is shaking.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!"

"Jennifer, I just came from hospital."

"Are you okay?! What happened?!"

"I was at Harlem and Bel-mont. I was running to catch de bus. I saw de bus was coming and I didn't want to miss it. I ran across the street, but I fell over something, I don't know what. And my face. I hit the street, my sunglasses shattered all over and into my face. I was carrying glasses of juice. I had been shopping and the glass broke in the bag by my face on de street and glass all over me. There was so much blood. You wouldn't beleive how much blood. But I stood up and tried to get on the bus. I didn't really feel nothing. I didn't know really what happened. But the bus driver told me she couldn't let me on the bus like that. And this woman. This very nice woman with the paper towels. I wish I had gotten her name..with the paper towels. She had just bought them at the store and she was helping me with the blood and there were people all around. Someone I don't know, some guy ran to the Denny's, you know, and called an ambulance. But I didn't know he did. when the ambulance got there I didn't know it was for me. People kept saying it was for me and I was like 'why?' I didn't want to go. But, one man said I would probbaly need stitches and I went with them. 14 stitches."

"Geez! You're lucky you didn't cut your eye."

"I know, my God! Can you believe? They numbed my face, you know? And then took out de little ti-ny pieces of glass all in my face and then they did the stiches. 14 stitches. I am still shaking."

"You were shopping?"

"Shopping. I got up early this morning to visit with Snoopy today on the way south side, you know."

"At the cemetary?"

"Yes, the cemetary, but he is not in the ground, you know, he is in the building. The Maso...Maso"

"Mausoleum?"

"Yes. But the gate was locked. It was closed for the holiday."

"Oh, yeah. I guess it's just Memorial Day and not Labor Day that they stay open."

"Yes, but I didn't know and it took almost two hours to get there. I was so damn mad. I get excited, you know, on the bus right before like I am going to see him, even though I know not really see him, but to know he's there. I was so excited I could feel it in my stomach that I was going to see him and then it was closed and I was so damn mad I thought how can I climb this fence? I was thinking, how I could climb the fence?"

"Ah, so it was going to be either the police station or the hospital today, one or the other."
"I would've never thought I would end up in hospital today when I woke up this morning. You really just don't know. Anything could happen."

"So then you went shopping."

"Yes, on my way back, I went shopping, but I wasn't really in the mood for shopping, I was so damn mad."

"That's why you fell."

"No I fell because I tripped over something. Where the road is higher like this." She shows me with her hand a few inches from the ground.

"You were so mad about the cemetary being closed that you were having an off day, you know, spiritually. Off-kilter. Your chi wasn't flowing. Where it's one bad thing after another."

"Then I was mad when I was at the hospital because everyone there is with someone and I was all alone and didn't have any phone numbers with me."

"Get a cell phone! I'll program numbers into it for you and show you how to use the speed dial."

"I maybe should, but I had one once and it was so damn expensive."

"Get a prepaid phone or something just for emergencies. What if you never came back?- We'd go crazy worrying about what happened to you!"

"I felt so bad at the hospital to be by myself like that when everyone else had somebody. I thought that damn Snoopy! He leave me all alone like this."

"Nooooo. He was with you in spirit."

"You think so? I forget to think that he could be with me all the time."

"He was."

"Then why did he have to let me trip and go to the hospital today to get 14 stitches?"

"You were running too fast for him. He didn't think you'd actually try to run for the bus. But, he dove just in time to save your eye, didn't he?"

"Yes. The doctor said it was a miracle it went all around, but no went glass in my eye."

"See, don't give him such a hard time. He saved your eye. You're the one who had to make a run it. He may have something to say about that."

"I guess so. I look terrible, don't I? People are going to wonder what happened."

"Tell 'em you were in a bar fight."

"Yes. That's it. I should tell them it was a bar fight." She smiled.

I added, "Tell 'em if they think you look bad, they should see the other guy!"

She paused, raised an eyebrow and with a smirk, "Twenty-five stitches."

"YES!!! Twenty five!"