My mother stepped into the room holding a mascara stained tissue. “He is doing OK. The doctors said they got it all and that he was going to be fine. Joseph, do you want to go see your father?” Well, of course I wanted to see him, but I want to see dad before the brain surgery, not after. I want to see the man who never took a day off of work, who never got sick, who knew all the answers to Trivial Pursuit.
I took my mother’s hand and walked down the hall of Cornell’s neuro-surgery wing. Upon entering the room I was awash in sunlight that was streaming in through the westside window. The heat felt good on my cool skin. And there in the bed sitting up lay Dad though it looked nothing like him. I stood at the foot of the bed for a moment and surveyed the scene. His head was shaved for easy access to the cranium. Staples then ran from the top of his head forward to the highest portion of his forehead and then back to his left ear. His face was completely purple from the nose up. His eyes were swollen as if he just lost a prize fight. I stood there at the foot of the bed for a long moment and felt this cold clammy rush to all of my exposed skin. I made my way around the bed and my mother quickly got a chair for me. “Sit down, honey, you don’t look so good.” Um, Mom have you seen dad lately?
My father had a brain tumor the size of your fist that was wrapping itself around his left retina. It was benign, but I don’t see how that word applies considering what I surveyed that day. Oh, it’s a friendly tumor!
My father did turn out to be fine. Even today, twenty some odd years later you can barely even make out the scar. But the lasting impression from that day is that Dad isn’t impervious to the outside world. That mortality does apply to him too. That maybe he won’t know who the king of Prussia was in 1772. Every child comes to this realization at some point and it is a sobering moment after years of being intoxicated on childhood innocence. I thank god that Max was too young to remember these last 3 weeks of me in such vulnerable states.
There are two good friends with whom I work that were unfortunate enough to lose their fathers over the last few months; one through illness and another through bizarre happenstance. Neither more tragic than the other. And it is for this reason that I dedicate this post to all the fathers. You are forever invincible in our hearts.
~Joe
Post-op #1: 24 days
Post-op #2 11 days
2 comments:
Just beautiful, Joe - very poignant. It's so good to know you are feeling stronger each day and even feel up to walking a bit. Bet that first shower and shave felt like the best ever!! Take good care of yourself!
Love,
Doug and Marge
Joe,
It isn't enough that I am dealing with pregnancy hormones...stop making me cry! Coincidentally I was just having the conversation with my dad 3 days ago (10/28) about how we want to believe parents are invincible AND all-knoiwing. In this case, on a much lighter note, it entailed us painting the living room - when the Home Depot man told me we'd absolutely need gray primer to make sure the 'cranapple' paint would in fact turn red, not magenta, and daddy said 'no need for primer,' whose opinion do you think I heeded? I reverted quickly back into 'Dad knows everything.' In this particular case...I warn you all, gray primer is key unless you are fond of magenta walls...but I am always thankful that my dad still seems quite invincible. :) Cheers to your dad, mine, and dads around the world, including yourself!Karen
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