Love Mama

Geoffrey woke once again with his painful alcohol induced headache. As was the norm for him, he had spent most of the previous day in and out of just about every bar in town. Since his father's death four years earlier, he lived in a drunken haze.

The pounding noises around him seemed to bore their way through his mind. It was then that he realized that he had spent the night on one of the long wooden benches at the train station. It wasn't the first time he had awakened there. In fact, it was becoming almost ritual for him to wake up on those benches. He was getting used to seeing parents pulling their children closer to them, keeping them out of his reach like he was a goblin out to steal their young.

He looked up to see the ticket clerk and one of the porters looking at him and shaking their heads in disgrace. His face was unshaven, his eyes were bloodshot, and the stench of aged whiskey emanated from every part of his being. He was jobless, homeless, and to the point of no longer caring about himself or anyone else. In fact, the idea of throwing himself under one of the trains sounded better and better to him all the time.

As he sat there, trying to sort through all the pictures in his head, the ticket clerk picked up the phone and made a call. He had know Geoffrey since childhood and thought maybe his mother could do something for him. The clerk explained to Mrs. Franklin that her son was again at the train station. The call broke her aging heart, but she knew what she had to do. She picked up a well-worn copy of the Bible and headed to the station.

As she entered the station, the ticket clerk pointed her in the direction of her son. He sat there, head in his hands, looking as though he hadn't a friend in the world. She sat down next to him, put her arms around him, and started to cry.

He looked up to see his mother's tear-filled eyes. "Oh Mama, what are you doing here"? She was the last person he wanted seeing him in his condition. "Go home, Mama. I'll be fine".

"Not a chance, boy. It's high time I stopped standing idly by and letting you destroy yourself. I brought you something". She pulled out the Bible and handed it to her son. It was the one his father had taken to church with him for nearly thirty years. It was heavily worn, every page had been colored in with a highlighter, and a few of the pages had been taped back together.

"Mom, I really don't need this from you right now. I just need a cup of coffee. Just go home". He felt a rage in his heart towards her that he didn't understand. "If you really want to do something for me, lend me twenty bucks. I'm broke and I haven't eaten for a while".

"No son, I'm not going to help you get drunk again. I love you far too much to do that to you. All I'm asking of you is to read the very front of this book, please". She handed the Bible to him, her feeble hands trembling.

Reluctantly, he took the Bible from his mother's hands. On the inside cover were handwritten words from his father. 'To my son, Geoffrey. This book saved my life and gave me life. May it do the same for you? My love for you will continue on, even after I leave this world. Until we meet in Heaven, Dad'.

Geoffrey sat in bewildered silence. He had missed his father desperately since his death. He had even convinced himself that his father died just to make his life more difficult. He sat there staring at the words his father had written, tears streaming down his face. "Why didn't you give this to me before"?

"I tried", his mother replied, "but you've been so distant since your father's passing. When they called me this morning, I knew this was the time to make you understand that not only did your father love you, I do too. But more than that, so does God. It's not to late to come back home, in every sense of the word".

Geoffrey took his mother's hand in his own. "Mama," he said with a slight murmur in his voice, "I need help. I can't quit drinking and I'm afraid I'm going to end up hurting myself. Will you help me"?

Mrs. Franklin grabbed her son, hugging him with all her might. It was the words she had prayed to hear from him. "Yes, baby, we'll do this together. Your father would be so proud".

It took several months, but eventually Geoffrey would be able to live his life clean and sober. He went back to school and became a counselor for alcoholics. He also earned his degree as a pastor. His mother lived long enough to hear her son preach his first sermon. After that, she went on to be with God and her husband. Before she passed on, she left one small thing for her son. Inside the front cover of her Bible, she wrote these words: 'To my son, this book
saved your father's life, it saved my life, and my greatest dream came true when I watched it save your life. Remember that the words inside this book are alive. They were written to keep all of us safe from the evils of this world. May this book shelter you and keep you safe until you come home. Love, Mama'.