Going back to my childhood home was never part of the plan. Not yet. Not in my late 20s.

I got the call in the middle of a meeting with my co-workers growing impatient in hushed tones. The patience in the world always seems to run away when money is involved. It was my brother and he rarely would call me at this time knowing I am always quite busy.

"Mom is sick," he finally muttered with a fittingly reluctant delivery.

"Well, give her some medicine," I quipped while pushing down a nervous tone that already began leaking into my voice.

"No. Jacob. You need to come in."

His sternness stung my cheeks into a wince. The words oozed out of the phone and plugged my ears. I couldn't hear anything else. Nothing else mattered.

I left my meeting and colleagues twiddling their thumbs without a second thought.

It was perhaps the longest plane ride of my life that brought me back to the front step of the hospital I had once visited for stitches in the 5th grade. Broken test tubes.

How could she be sick? Sick with what? She's not that old.

I'm too young for a dying parent. How can I give back to her if I've only really just gotten into my working life? This isn't supposed to happen!

She'll be fine. She has to be fine.

Thoughts were whirling as I finally reached her room where my siblings greeted me and ushered me in. I did not like their faces. All twisted and drenched in doubt.

"She has something for you," my brother said with an unexpected crack in his voice.

I walked past them and up to her bedside. She looked nothing like how I remembered her, quite frail and discolored. I could only force a soft smile as she turned and began to recognize me in perfect slow motion.

"Jakey, you came." Her voice was cold and raspy, lacking the hum it used to have when we were safe. She lifted her hand ever so slightly which I slipped my hands into and raised to my face as I went to a knee.

Beneath her right arm, she held a Bible as she always seemed to have one nearby.

"Have you been reading?" I asked. She gently shook her head without losing sight of me.

"Have you been praying?" She smiled and squeezed my hand.

"I have something for you," she said while turning to her left.

In her other arm was a small blue stuffed animal that I hadn't seen in perhaps a decade. It was a gift from one of the early birthdays that I could only barely remember. A stuffed blue whale that always played the main antagonist in my childhood adventures.

"You remember Benny?"

"Of course"

"You hated Benny. I got him from Paris. Have you ever been?"

I never understood her obsession with Paris but it seemed to be where she got all the stuffed animals just so she could happily remind us of where they were from.

"No mom, not yet."

In the passing days there were a few other bedside chats that any son would be grateful for.

When she finally passed I was left with Benny and mere projections of moments that lived as me. I would visit them regularly and revive my rivalry with that arrogant whale that called himself "Benjamin." He was the head honcho, the powerful dictator, the Captain Hook of my young fantasy domain. Yet I would always vanquish him, always foil the great scheme of evil that threatened my world.

It was my mother's hand that always played the part in perfect character. She always animated the perfect bad guy.

Now he rests in my arms with no puppetmaster. No great mover. No rising hero to wrestle his fuzzy blue fins.

I place him on my bookshelf. Our bond becoming stronger.

"Hey Daddy, what's that?" I spin around seemingly caught in the act. The act of falling to the dark side...

"Who? This?"

"Well, this is Benjamin."