Mary called me this morning, and I knew that Mary had no reason to be calling me at 8:11 on a Monday morning. My gut wrenched as I walked through my office so I could call her back. I knew they were just returning from Europe, and my first thought is that something happened to both of them, or just to Pam.. But if so my dad would be calling me, not Mary. They thought it was a heart attack, my stepmom found him on the bathroom floor not moving or breathing. He was rushed to the hospital where they kept trying to stabilize his condition, but nothing was working. I drove home solemn, I kept my sunglasses on because the tears were streaming down my face.
He'll make it, people survive these all the time. Every day people survive heart attacks. People, worse people who lived selfish, cruel lives have survived them. My step father, who holds a special place in the depth of depravity survived two of them, my dad was going to be fine, I thought. Except that it wasn't a heart attack. It was worse.
My dad had a brain aneurysm and it hemorrhaged. The next time I spoke with Mary she explained this, and explained that they asked if a brain surgeon should be brought in, but then there would be a 5% chance of survival -- brain dead in a wheel chair for however long he could sustain. As I type this, my father is on life support, as my sister explained to me, his chest still heaves up and down as his lungs pump air throughout his system. He lays there, serene, hooked up to a life support system, long enough so they can harvest his organs to be donated.
I'm across the country and I can't get there until tomorrow and I'm not even sure how I'm feeling. I realize that I'm slipping tenses here, but I really don't care.
Dad, there is really so much that I want to say, and I know that I can't, that it is too late. You spent your entire life dedicated to helping everybody else and nobody ever had the chance to help you out in return. I know this is how you would of wanted it; you wouldn't of wanted to put other people what they put you through. Yesterday you brought your sick Aunt that you've taken care of for as long as I can imagine a set of rosary beads that you bought for her at the Vatican. You were always there for her, even when nobody else was. They all visited her when she was alright, but you were the one that took her from hospital to hospital, that was there every day that you could be. The same with your mother, you were always there while everybody else kept their distance and waited.
You never gave up and you never would have. I remember those nights that you spent sleeping on a sleeping bag on my floor because my mother was trying to provoke you so she could get custody of us, and I remember how every night you cried yourself to sleep when you thought that I had already fallen asleep. When a little over a year and a half later I decided to go back and live with her because I wasn't happy with your life decisions you didn't stop me, and when that fell apart you didn't raise a single objection to taking me back.
All I can really hope for is that you were happy these last 10 years. I love you. I am going to miss you.
1 comment:
First visit to your blog in a while. This was just heartbreaking and beautifully written.
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