Story Time With Cass

I call my beautiful boy "sweetheart", and he does likewise. Most people don't realize that there is, in fact, a story behind it.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I once had a friend in Kingsland, Georgia. He was an amazing boy- at the time, I would've married him if he'd let me. For quite some time, we had something that was pure and nice(it seems I have a history of unofficial relationships with boys I love). He refused to ever actually be mine. You see, he had muscular dystrophy(a disease that eats away the muscle), and he was dying.

I always thought that it must be an odd sensation for him, knowing that he didn't have long. It gave our relationship a different quality. Neither of us ever held back something we wanted to say to each other, because we both knew that every conversation could be our last.

The first time I went to visit him, he was graduating from high school. It had taken him an extra two years. They had only built a ramp on one side of the stage, so a group of men lifted him and his entire wheelchair onto the other side, so that he could go across like everyone else. When he did, everyone in that stadium cheered. Hundreds of people there, cheering him on, congratulating him. Hundreds of people, but I was the one he'd chosen. It was one of the most overwhelming moments in my life.

The second and last time I went to visit, I brought my beautiful boy along. My Georgia boy and I had grown distant, but I still wanted to see him one more time. The drive was thirteen hours long and I had no driver's license, so my Georgia boy was amicable to my bringing someone along. And, more importantly, we had talked about him. My Georgia boy must have seen where my heart was going, and expressed a great amount of interest in meeting this new person in my life. In retrospect, I think it gave him some comfort to know that there was someone who would take care of me when he no longer could.

The visit was interesting, and I was happy. It was scary, though, to see someone so small. I always wondered just how someone could survive for so long being so small. On our way out, my beautiful boy was packing a pipe(yes, we do partake in somewhat illegal extracurricular activities). I happened to glance over and notice two Georgia State Troopers, that would very soon be about three feet from our car and look down into our windows.

Without thinking, I started subtly hitting his arm. "Uh... sweetheart...." I said, trying to draw his attention without drawing theirs. He looked up with both confusion and amusement. Of course, then he looked over, and rapidly hid his activities.

Why I called him "sweetheart" at that moment, I don't know, but we had a good laugh about it on the way home. Ever since then, that's been our special name for each other. Even now, it's something that we reserve for each other.

I remember that trip with all kinds of fondness- the little Georgia diner where we had breakfast, stopping by my Uncle Dave's on the way down, our agreement to take turns driving a hundred miles each(and then how I couldn't bear to wake him up for his turn and ended up driving three hundred instead). I remember that we stopped on the Bay Bridge-Tunnel, on the Seagull Pier(one of my all-time favorite places) and had lunch, and how when we slept in the back of my car at the rest stop in Georgia and he put his arm around me. In Maryland it was still winter, but as we went south we drove into spring.

Though my Georgia boy and Uncle Dave are gone, and it's not likely that I'll be able to take such a huge trip again soon, my beautiful boy is still here. He still calls me sweetheart. It's funny how some things live on.