Cold Metal-Iggy Pop

Saturday, November 29, 2008-6:00 P.M.

I'm going to keep this blog short and you'll understand why after reading it. My mother was in a car accident on Tuesday night. I found out about it when I got home and checked my e-mail, and one of her friends from the gated community she lives in sent me a message with the phone number of the hospital she was taken to.

Long story short, it was a bad wreck. She was hit on the driver's side of her vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee, while attempting to make a left hand turn. The impact spun her into the other lane, and she was hit again. She suffered a concussion, broken collarbone, and needed stitches on her head. The car was opened with the jaws of life and she was taken by helicopter from Leesburg, Florida to the Orlando Medical Center.

There's no reason she should be alive today, but she is. And all of this took place two days before Thanksgiving.

My sister scrapped her holiday plans and flew immediately down to Florida, and she'll be there until Tuesday of next week, and I'm going down Tuesday morning and staying until Thursday. I'd stay longer, but I have commitments in New York, so I'll be flying back home for the weekend, and then most probably returning the week after.

I'm performing in Toronto at Absolute Comedy, my first appearance here ever. I booked it specifically so that I could work a decent week somewhere, and Canada celebrates their Thanksgiving back in October, so it was a good move at the time. Unfortunately, now I'm away from my family in Rochester and worried sick about my mother. Besides the health issues involved, this accident is sure to take a financial toll on her, and that's really on my mind because I'm just barely making it and not in any shape to help her out if things get rough.

So here I am, in a beautiful city at a beautiful new club, trying to make a good first impression with the weight of the world on my shoulders and sick to my stomach about it.

I'm thankful my mother is alive. I'm thankful that I'm working, and can go spend time with her, if only for a few days. I'm thankful that my brother and sister are pitching in. I'm thankful that my wife understands what I'm going through and can continuously do without my time and attention, even though she has to do it all the time.

I keep telling myself that God doesn't hand us anything we can't handle, but lately the load's looking awfully cumbersome.

I'm not writing this to bring you down, dear reader. Believe me, I've struggled since Wednesday about writing at all, and if I did write, exactly what should I say? I thought about writing about anything else, but the indecision left me frozen, so I wrote nothing.

I have two shows tonight, and one tomorrow, and then I drive the three hours back home. I'll spend a day doing laundry and spending just a little time with my wife and daughter, and then Tuesday morning I'll fly to my mother's side. I don't know what I'll do while I'm down there, I guess I'll just do what's needed. My sister, who has the strength of Hercules for this sort of thing, has already laid plenty of groundwork, so I'm sure she'll have a list of things for me to do.

I've never felt weaker or less prepared in my life, and it's scaring the hell out of me.

I suppose I could have written anything else here, rather than show my vulnerability now, but for what purpose? So that you would think better of me?

I've always chosen honesty, to the point of bluntness, and let the chips fall where they may. I'm not going to change that now.

I'm off to go be funny now. Thank you for reading.

Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY