the old-school guestbook archives
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a phone call in the morning ~ april 7, 2001 - 11:19 p.m. I woke up this morning when stacie started screaming. WHAT?!! WHAT?!!! up out of bed and into the living room where pat was already holding her, arms wrapped around tight as she whiteknuckled the phone and tore hysterical questions into the reciever. WHAT HAPPENED? IS HE ALREADY IS HE ALREADY-- and I was there helpless, hands pressed to her back, wanting her to know I was there but knowing it made no difference, that the quietness of my touch was lost in the roar of the horror of what was happening to her. and somehow I knew, somehow I had known even before I came close enough to hear her mother's voice coming from the phone yes, honey, he's already dead. somehow I knew that stacie's mother had called to tell her that her father was dead. it was a sudden death-- no long illness, no preparation, no second chances, no time to say goodbye. I am terrified of this phone call. I know that my parents will die someday, but I also know that I will not be ready when they do. my father's diabetic, and we all know he eats too much sugar, plays a dangerous game with his insulin levels on a regular basis. me and him, we've always been the ones with a passion for sweets. when I was a kid sometimes we'd go to the ben franklin and buy a kite and some reese's peanutbutter cups and spend the afternoon at the university soccer field wired on sugar, running back and forth until we got that kite into the air. I will not be ready the day my father dies. my mother spent several months in the hospital with a severe case of bacterial pneumonia when I was eight. the doctor kept telling her it was just the flu at first, that she just needed bedrest, until the night she stopped being able to breathe. they put her in the intensive care unit, where she had tubes running from everywhere, tubes up her nose just so she could breathe. she couldn't talk, and had to write notes to us on a notepad. me and my sister talked about it-- what if mom dies-- and I remember my sister made me cry-- but we didn't really believe it would happen, not really. even dad didn't actually comprehend the depth of what was happening until later, until the day the doctor told him she was out of danger. it wasn't until that moment that he'd understood that she'd been in danger. later she was told she was the first person the doctors knew of to survive that particular type of pneumonia. she was moved out of the ICU and into a regular room, she was taken off the ventilator, but she was still weak and sick, and she was there for months. I started going to visit her by myself, after school. the hospital was only a couple of blocks from our house. my mother still smiles when she remembers that, how the only one who came to see her more than me was my dad. I will not be ready the day my mother dies. I've struggled with them both, especially my mother, fought about the differences in the way we see the world, but I cannot imagine the world without them. and yet I know that one day I will have to. and that it may be as sudden as this. a phone call in the morning, a whole world ripped out from under you. pat and stacie are flying out to pennsylvania tomorrow for the funeral. I'm going to stay here and housesit while they're gone. and tomorrow I'm going to call my parents. I haven't talked to them in way too long.
(((rings))) |