The Cure

February 11, 2010

The year was 2008. One summer night, a Thursday, I was working with a new design on the computer. A good friend called asking to visit the upcoming weekend. The friend lived in somewhat of a busy city about an hour and change away. The trip was always a lovely one except of course during the rush hours of sixty mile an hour, bumper to bumper horns and countless one finger greetings.

The two lane country blacktop meandered through Mother Nature’s dark green winters when rain brought out the emerald beauty. Summer’s dry hills were also where wine country beckoned. The opposite ride, as lovely but the destination of course, was also just the opposite; not a bad city really, in fact it was a good one.

The initial plan was for a relaxing few days in more of a country atmosphere then where the friend was living. Before the arrival I was informed it was to be more of a healing situation because the friend was not only feeling under the weather but was indeed sick. Later we learned she also had a slight temperature.

I had no problem with this mostly because it was a really good friend and one I cared for a lot. She sounded so out of it that I gladly welcomed her and asked if she felt OK to make the one hour plus trip. After the affirmation she was told a warm spot would be readied as well as to expect to be waited on hand, den feat.

Coincidentally a few days before while craving the taste, I had brewed up a huge pot of mom’s chicken soup recipe. Everything mom threw into the pot was more than any human, animal or bird would need to stay healthy in not only blizzard conditions like Antarctica but also the sweltering heat of volcano proportions.

As sick and stay at home from school children, besides Vicks Vapor Rub rubbed all over our chest and foreheads as well as those weird boiling water mist/vapor things mom always stuck by our nose, the soup by far seemed to work the best.

Although quite often with a cold it was definitely not easy to distinguish what the heck was what in the hot concoction. Recognising colours and shapes were barely clues to taste if there were any. Smell and colds was knot in the MMicks.

Needless to say I’ve recalled many a time that in itself mom’s chicken soup has done medical wonders in our family’s past. I always thought mom should put the stuff in jars and sell it to bus drivers, taxidermists and just about anyone who didn’t want to take over or under the counter remedies. It was more than good.

At the door greetings, upon the friend’s arrival I kept a hermetically sealed safe distance. The shades and curtains were drawn, the healing spot was warm and the soup began to heat on the stove. Within ninety seconds of reaching the warm healing spot, the patient was fast asleep. I shut off the soup with a smile and continued silently working at the computer for the next four or five hours.

From time to time the patient would toss and turn while emitting muffled, anguished sounds of suffering, torture and physical torment. Often when hearing this and stepping silently into the room to keep an eye on the patient I had noticed FACE found a comfortable spot at the bottom end of the bed.

FACE you may remember is the feline who has lived with mme ever since 1995. We’ve been pals for a long time. I know FACE is definitely aware when someone isn’t feeling up to par. She’ll always get more affectionate and stay close at hands. Her voice more than other times will have special questioning inflections.

Each time I checked, FACE was moving closer and closer to where the patient could touch her. After the five hour nap without warning the patient awoke with a surprise that made FACE move back to her original spot at the end of the bed; playing Monopoly when having to travel back to Go with no reward of any kind.

When the patient noticed this with sleepy eyes she summoned FACE closer. There they lay; FACE, on the patient’s chest as they looked at each other, eye to eye. FACE purred as the patient twirled her fingers through the soft feline fur. It seemed like FACE had a new owner and I was relegated to the soup kitchen.

The following words of ‘The Cure’ describe how the rest of the time went really. It didn’t matter if the soup got cold or wasn’t even tasted, although much later we both welcomed it to the dual empty cavities. She wondered what those little red things were floating around in her bowl. Unrecognisable tomato, the reply.

Regardless, nothing I could do compared to FACE’s healing treatment bestowed upon the patient. It was definitely the two of them operating within each others scents of companionship that appeared to work medical wonders. As a spectator so to speak one could imagine it was mostly FACE’s version of concern that inspired:

The Cure

She sleeps in cold’s sweat wounded
Her body’s grief within
Her strength’s reduced to nothing much
Her forehead’s burning to the touch
Her lips join sorrow, hands are clutched
Her victual’s repeated sour rush
Her eyes share saddened, opened just
To witness love’s to mend her.

She’s lost the search for comfort
Through turn’s ‘n tossed, the strain
His FACE has sensed her agony
She climbs, confronts her misery
As if to show the heal is - We
She lies beside her loyally
They touch the kindred spirits tree
And witness love’s to mend her.

She smiles in pain’s releasing
The Cure begins to win
She seized their love bond to her chest
Her hands caressed charm’s tenderness
Her eyes perceived souls kindliness
Her health’s restored - her grief regressed
Her wound’s defeated helplessness
She witnessed love’s to mend her.