Miss Bernie

I laughed, "I don't know who you are, but I know you are a Jenkins." I looked at her more closely, I said, "Kathy?"

"What? How do you know me?"

I said, "Sit down, this may be a shock to you. I am your little brother Bernard, Berny!"

Her eyes grew huge, "You have got to be kidding, wait, I see it now. What happened, we all thought you were dead."

I told her a brief story about what had happened to me. When she really believed it was me she hugged and kissed me. Then she looked at me and smiled, "You look just like the old pictures of Momma when she was your age. You are a spittin' image of her."

I found out that most of my sisters had moved away and were scattered all over the country. All of them were well and one of them even lives in Orlando, Florida only 75 miles from where I used to live.

She said she had seen my rental car and came over to see who it was. She lives in a doublewide across the road. She is a nurse practitioner at a clinic a few miles away. She was very concerned about how I looked. We drove over to her house and I met her husband. I didn't know him but he seemed quite nice.

She sat me in a chair, she looked in my eyes, took my pulse.

She got her medical bag and took my blood pressure. She looked in my eyes. She asked why I had been crying so much. I told her what had happened. She said, "You have a new son you walked off and left?" She looked at me felt my arms and legs. "How much do you normally weigh?"

"120 pounds."

"Honey, I'll bet you don't weigh 100 pounds. Give me the name of your doctor."

I shook my head. "I'm OK. No problem."

Karen looked at me, "From what you are telling me I think you have a hormone imbalance and it has your mind screwed up. When did you eat last?"

I couldn't remember eating for several days, maybe even longer, I had lost track of what day it was.

Karen was on the phone to Angie, my oldest sister who lived ten miles away. Another sister Donna was twenty miles away. She grinned, "They are both on their way. Now listen to me, I want you to go rest in our guest bedroom until they get here, OK?"