life's surprises

It always comes when you least expect it.  That's a trite little number you can apply to so many of life's offerings; love, tragedy, all of it.  For good, for bad.  It always manages to knock you on your ass.  You begin to hit a stride, possibly feel content, like you have it all figured out, perhaps not, maybe even comfortable with the routine, then BOOM.  Down you go, as life knocks you over your smug little head. 

Today started out like any other ordinary day, but became a day less ordinary when I got the call.  

LCD Soundsystem once said, "I woke up and the phone was ringing, surprised, as it's early.  And that should be a perfect warning that something's a problem."  

I think we inherently know something's wrong when we get a call from a particular person at an unconventional time.  Something inside you tightens, and you brace yourself as you place the phone against your ear.  

Yet it never makes the blow you are about to receive any easier.  My father had a stroke this morning, collapsed at work and was ambulanced to an unknown hospital.  That was all I knew.  A flood of scenarios ran into my head.  Was he alive?  What happened?  How bad?  Would I ever see him again?  Why now?  Why ever?

It's situations like these that allow the underlying guilt to surface.  Seeing my dad in ICU, the big bear of a man that was always there to help me move furniture into my new apartment, or drive me to the airport mid week, or readily able to advise me when I was and wasn't getting ripped off at the mechanic, jolted my sense of what closeness between family members was supposed to be.  At the hospital, I held on to his hand, suddenly remembering how large his hands seemed when I was a little girl.  On a trip to the zoo when I was about six I remember gripping his immense thumbs in my entire hand and marveling at how enormous and strong they were.  Now his hand was covered in tubes and bandages, not nearly as commanding as it was all those years ago as he guided me through the petting zoo.  

The stroke rendered him incapable of speech.  I watched him struggle to get a few words out, exhausting himself into silence, resignation.  I had avoided calling him for the past month.  I was trying to evade his questions and sermons regarding my impending layoff at work.  I knew he would nag me to look for a government job, because they were one of the few places hiring, affording me some kind of stability, and it didn't hurt that it served as his current place of employment.  I however, had other ideas.  I very much did not want to work for the government.  I wanted to transition into more creative pursuits, I wanted to chase my passions.  Those sort of lofty ideals wouldn't sit well with him.  I knew this.  I didn't want to hear it.  So I didn't call.

Now I long to hear him nag and bitch at me.  I wish with all my being for a sermon from him.  He is no longer the person I previously found unpleasant to talk to.  He is vulnerable and weakened and indifferent.  From his hospital bed he stares vacantly, able to answer yes, or no, able to be spoon fed his hospital food.  I sit there powerless and just stare at him.  I wish for nothing more than the person I was avoiding to come back.  His stubborn commentary would be music to my ears.  What I resented him for is what I long to have returned to me; it was the essence of him.  But now it's too late.  It's easier to wish for anything when you have nothing. 

Slowly and steadily, with each year, my family tree is losing all its leaves.