Nineteen-ninety-four. I was basting on the Dermatology department’s sundeck at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Bare assed butt naked. Nobody ever comes up here at all anymore, I don’t know why not.
Ha! Just kidding. Helps relieve some of the tension.
***
My father was laid up in Neurology. Motto: “The Vegetative State.” Good news is, he had no idea he suffered a massive coronary, followed by a quadruple bypass. With a stroke or two just to make things interesting.
Like taking your car to the garage for the free lube & oil, maybe a minor tune-up and finding out, in the worst way, you need a completely new drivetrain.
He can’t swallow properly, so he can’t get the nutrition he needs, so he can’t rehab. They put a feeding tube in his abdomen and discovered several ulcers. Which means they have to stop daily aspirin, which means another drug to keep his blood from clotting. Which means he can’t fall down ever again. Because his next tumble will be his last. No getting back up. One carotid artery is half blocked. Can’t fix that because the other is already a completely blocked carotid artery. Both can’t be blocked, it’s just math. Apparently he’s had several strokes, little ones, in the past. Nobody knew. It’s not good. Not good at all.
His brain needs food and blood and air to get better. Fuel. I get most of my medical updates from the candy striper who brings the get-well cards. At last the term “medical practice” makes complete sense.
Could be worse. Dad’s complexion is that of a 16-year-old Eskimo girl’s butt and he’s finally got a sense of humor. He’s actually funnier than before he went out of his mind. The specialist told me enhanced wit was a not uncommon result of “a right hemisphere event.”
Like the time Dad sat up out of a dead sleep, looked around vacantly, shouted, “Too much hocus pocus! Not enough magic!” Fell back, snoring again before his head settled onto the pillow.
Footsteps pattering hurriedly down the hallway. A single-file parade of white uniforms fills the room. Surrounds the bed. Hovering.
Dad sits up again, looks around, slowly, his eyes narrow in focus. “Yuppies! Entrepreneurs!”
And falls back onto his pillow, snoring.
My favorite, maybe you had to be there…. Dad’s sound asleep, sounds like somebody is mowing the bed. I am staring out the window, thinking this is not gonna end well. and I hear a deep hoarse voice atop weak lungs, “I want cuter nurses!”
And, most importantly, none of his numerous maladies are hereditary.
***
Oh yeah, one day he disinherited me.
“I am your only surviving child, your first born,” I reminded him. “I’m Junior.”
“I’m leaving everything to my church.”
“You don’t have a church.”
That cut him short. His eyes glazed over like an apple fritter.
He drifted off, staring into the distance.
I went looking for him.
“You mean to tell me, I don’t get the paperweight collection, one from every state, where you turn it over, shake it upside down, then turn it rightside up and snow flakes fall on some plastic scene that’s supposed to remind you of your visit,” I hollered.
So even a dead man could hear.
“You mean to tell me, I don’t get the paperweight from Montana with the full moon in the background and three wolves in the front,with the middle one howling?”
No answer.
“I was kinda counting on the paperweight with the wolves,” I yelled.
Maybe I should hold a mirror up to his mouth.
“How about your coin collection? That’s gotta be worth big bucks.”
“It’s worth plenty. You can just forget the coins.” That did it.
Finally, it was time to go.
Mother asked Dad if it was okay to kiss him goodbye.
“No,” he says. She is hurt.
Try to lighten the mood. “How about me?,” I ask, pursing my lips into a grotesque O-shape.
“You least of all,’ he growls.
***
Next day I can’t help thinking I am much too young still to be holding my mother’s hand at a time like this.
I am holding Mother’s hand, as we watch Dad – tubes everywhere – try to remember his own name.
“It’s the same name as mine,” I tell him, raising my voice. He doesn’t hear so good with his good ear and he’s part deaf in the other. Mother left his hearing aids at home, because, as she said, more than lives can get lost at the hospital.
Dad gives Mother his thousand-yard stare.
Then he looks right through me.
“And, who are you?,” he asks.
Two weeks here, first name basis with the hospital’s valets, I am finally closer to the answer.
***
My father sobbed.
His head waters every time Pastor Bob prays. Tears gush over pale cheeks that glisten.
Pastor Bob recited the Twenty-third Psalm.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul; He leadth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”
Dad soaketh his pillow case.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Head bowed, I am uncomfortable holding Pastor Bob’s hand. Don’t even know the man.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
Mother’s heart breaks, trickles a single tear, a single tear torn loose, a single tear torn loose traces fifty years of troth across suddenly lonely landscape.
Not a dry eye in the house.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
I don’t listen. I pray instead. Please, Lord, don’t let this guy sing ‘Amazing Grace.’
I wish I could scream.
I scream.
***
By the way, does the sun block go on top of, or under, the mosquito repellent?