TOO LATE

I’m still not sure whether or not she recognized me. My brother and sister told me she did.
\"Oh, yes. She knew who you were. She was so happy to see you after all these years.\"
That last part got me. Whether it was said with contempt, or whether I just projected it onto the words, it got me.
I knew my mom was in bad shape. My brother, Steven, had told me as much. He tried to put a positive spin on things.
\"She’s happy, always laughing.\"
But the tone of his voice said it all. That was always the case with Steven. Like the time Steven told me my painting was \"interesting\". He didn\'t understand it, and that sure must’ve meant it was deep,.. or something. There was always an \"or something\" when Steven talked to me; whether he actually said it or it was just in the tone of his voice. Steven, try as hard as he did to be positive, could never be completely sure about his older brother.
My sister, Marion, was more blunt.
\"Get your ass here to see Mom now.\"
She didn’t say \"before it’s too late\". She didn’t have to say it.
What the hell happened? I’d always tried to be a good son. A good older brother. And, later, a good father and husband. But I ended up running away. From all of it. Now it took an inferred \"before it’s too late\" to get me home.
When we were kids, Steven was always sick, and Marion played the drama queen to get as much of the attention away from Steven as she could. My youngest brother, Phillip, actually skipped out first. Of course, it wasn\'t Phillip’s choice get hit by a car when he was seven. Though his coma and struggle to live ended quickly, Phillip was still more part of the family than I was, even some 30 years later. It was easy for me to fade into the background. I didn’t mind it, though. It just happened. I practically disappeared forever. Until this \"before it’s too late\".
Marion called me a bum. She had a way with words. But I couldn’t exactly disagree with her. My family had supported me in whatever capacity they could. I didn’t really have any way of knowing if it’s comparable to what others had, or if someone else would consider it satisfactory or acceptable, but I was pretty sure I did. Yet I had found it so easy to drift away.
What a mess my life was. And now, my mom, if she could even remember me at all, would probably remember me as the screw up. Phillip, the eternally innocent boy, Steven the caretaker, Marion the passionate one, and me, the lethargic, good for nothing, screw up. Was there even any point of turning my life around?
\"Phillip?\" is how my mother greeted me. She was in a wheelchair, which I wasn’t expecting for some reason. She kept on looking at a picture of Phillip, and then to me.
\"No, Mom,\" Steven said as he squatted to her eye level. \"It’s Daniel. He came all the way to see you. Isn’t that wonderful?\"
She looked at me with a faint smile and nodded. I tried to make a joke, put myself down in some way, and tell her she looked good. I told her how good it was to see her again and how I’d meant to visit sooner. She called me Phillip for the rest of the weekend.