Daughtering

I thought I would spend the weekend writing, doing laundry, and preparing a presentation at work. Then came the ring. Don't people always talk about the ring? It's probably nothing, but my dad is in the hospital with chest pains. It's probably nothing, but he's had some heart problems in the past. They put some balloons in there about a year ago, and told him to lose weight. He's very heavy. It's probably nothing, but I remember that documentary that Tim Lehrer did about his heart attack - he described it as a train running over his chest - and the doctors keeping him for observation before the train left the station.

One time, Dad felt chest pains, so he got up out of bed, took a shower, and waited for my mom to wake up. Like, duh! He wanted to be sure he smelled good or something? The doctors said later that a heart attack had been imminent, but the balloons opened up the clogged arteries. I knew then that that would be the first of several future cardiac-type visits. The folks there seemed professional and friendly - occasionally a rural hospital will be comforting rather than eerily backward. They had automatic doors, so they seemed hip to the high-tech thing.

Isn't it odd to be at an age when we consider a parent's death, not as a remote fear, but as a real possibility? It's not that he is in a dire situation at the moment, but the ER visits do give one pause. When my father was thirty years old, his sister died. A year later, his mother died. Dad sometimes said it was a broken heart that killed his mother. My brother died last summer. Both of my parents have been determined to continue to participate in the world, to grasp at what they do have, while they mourn. So I am going to be with them and to kvetch at him (nag) about eating the lousy food and drinking enough water. And I'm sort of hoping that he is not thinking about the irony, or even that he now shares an experience with his mother that he never imagined he would.

For my own mother, I am hoping that she has many years with her companion, a night with some sleep in it, and a little relief from the sadness. The latter two seem 'highly unlikely,' as we say in my family. She likes to 'think positive,' though, so despite my tendencies otherwise, I am going to join her there. This is one situation in which a little denial may be required.