A Message, An Hour
My father is in the hospital. The first thought that ran through my head when I got the news was, My brother is such a douche bag.
He left me a voice mail; I missed his call because I was at work.
“Dad’s in the hospital. He fell and broke his hip. He needs surgery.”
First off, you don’t leave news like that on a fucking voice mail. You say something on the order of, “Please call me back when you can.” Subtlety, it seems, is lost on my brother. Instead, I was left thinking my father was in agony or worse. Since it’s me, I went to some dark places.
I happened to be working close enough that I could visit my Dad in between my gigs. I was the only person there in his hospital room. I forgot to ask if anyone else had come by before me.
He was admitted yesterday. He’d gone outside to turn off the pump to his pool, slipped and fell. He was on pain meds and seemed to be just fine. We chatted, just the two of us, and watched television. I turned on the WiFi on his phone and explained how you transfer pictures to your computer, though his laptop wasn’t there.
I leave on a plane for Seattle in three hours.
Dad’s surgery is tomorrow. I’ll call him afterwards, make sure he’s okay. It’s only a partial hip replacement, thankfully. His doctor thinks he’ll be able to stand and move around a day after the procedure.
I still haven’t cried yet. Once I got the news, I could feel the emotion welling up, ready to break. But I was at work. And Dad wasn’t dead, just hurt. I did my compartmentalization thing.
But I knew, if someone fucked with me, if my boss acted more asshole-ish than normal, I would probably lash out or loose my shit. I’m glad neither happened.
It was a simple hour, my sitting in a chair in my Dad’s hospital room, yet it was something my father and I had never done before. Just the two of us sitting and chatting about nothing important in particular for such a long period of time.
Often when I’ve visited someone in the hospital, the point of my time with them was to help relieve the loneliness and boredom. I was disappointed I saw no one else there with him.
I called my Mom after I left my Dad, told her the news. And, of course, told her to call him. I hope she did. She worried that his wife would be there. I worry that she found an excuse to not call him. My Mom often doesn’t “want to be a bother”. I often want to shake her. She created a child with this man. She is allowed to call him. It is just a phone call.
Funny, this incident marks both my parents suddenly in the hospital in less than six months. And each instance coincides with my kink adventures.
I know my parents are getting older. Shit, my Dad is already old. Eighty-three years old.
I know there will come a time when I get that phone call, when my entitled little dipshit brother lets me know one of the worst things in my life has finally happened. But, for now, it hasn’t happened yet.