"What's not fair, Sheriff?" Someone asked me.

Although I no longer held the office most people in Astatula still referred to me in that manner. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on their part. Or maybe it was a subtle suggestion that I reclaim my proper station in town.

It was Mama Rosie, Cody's Lead Nurse. She came into the room to routinely check on her young patient.

Wrapped up in conversing with Cody, I did not realize she entered the room and was standing next to me. She placed her warm hand on my wrist.

"After all this time of patiently waiting Cody was just awake and talking to me about his new friend Blazer," I answered her pointing the grey wolf out to Mama Rosie so she knew what I was referring to. "Now he's asleep again. It's not fair!" I protested.

"Sugar," Mama Rosie tried to convince me in her tender way of addressing people, "Cody is going to be okay."

I looked up at her not sure I agreed with her assessment. I guess she sensed my doubt about her proclamation.

A little more sternly, in her mothering way, Mama Rosie looked back at me and stated, "You listen here to me Sheriff. Out there past those doors you may be the law and order in this town making everything all right. But in here nature takes its course."

Softening her tone she continued with, "Cody's doing exactly what coma patients do."

"What's that?" I asked her.

"This ain't the Hollywood movies where coma patients come awake and immediately pick up right where they left off," Mama Rosie sympathetically explained the facts of life to me.

"Here in the real world Sugar," she said a little more gently, "they usually only stay awake for a few minutes the first time they wake up. So you see Sheriff nature's taking it's rightful course."

I stared back at Mama Rosie unsure I liked that proposition and wondered, "What if I don't like the course nature is taking?"

Definitely, in this case I did not! Not one little bit.

In her plain talking, straight from the hip style Mama Rosie told me whether I wanted to hear what she had to say or not, "Then hold on for the ride of your life Sheriff. 'Cause there ain't nothing you can do about that."

I sensed I did not want to hear the rest of what Mama Rosie was about to tell me but she finished saying it any way, "Then gradually coma patients stay awake for longer periods of time until they reach some degree of normalcy again."

What Mama Rosie told me meant I had more waiting to do although I was up to my eyeballs in the quagmire. However, if Cody needed more time I wasn't going anywhere.

"You know Rosie," I began, "when I was talking to Cody, just before you came in the room, for the first time ever Cody called me Dad," I proudly announced.

Encouragingly, like she always was, Mama Rosie playfully slapped my arm and remarked, "There you go Sheriff!"

I allowed a smile and Mama Rosie told me, "A bird in a cage will forget how to sing Sheriff. Give Cody some wings and let him fly back to you."

Removing her stethoscope from around her neck she said, "Now step back out of the way so I can tend to my patient."

I knew Mama Rosie was right. I also knew this was a highly intelligent woman I was speaking to. For that, and her comforting friendship, I was grateful.

I stepped back out of her way.