How does this go?
I am not sure what exactly you’re supposed to say to your Dad the evening before he goes in for open-heart surgery. Seriously – what in the world is that conversation supposed to sound like?
Surely not: “Holy shit I am scared to death right now, and trying not to freak out. You could die. You could really die. I don’t want you to die. I don’t even know how to process that version of reality. I can’t think about this right now. I really hope this isn’t the last conversation we ever have. What if it is? How many impossible things would I need to pack into this phone call to make it the right thing to have said?”
Hopefully it’s more like: “Everything’s going to be fine, it will be over with before you know it. I will be by to see you on Tuesday when you’re out of the ICU. I love you.”
Because that’s all I could come up with.
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When I spoke to my dad the other night on the phone, knowing it might be the last time (he’s had another heart attack since the first one now), I told him some dumb thing about how whenever I go to the grocery store, I think of him and how he taught me how to pick out fruits, and the difference between good and bad meats, and stuff. He went, “Oh yeah! We did used to go shopping together a lot when you were little, didn’t we?”
It was all I could think of…I just wanted to give him a concrete example of how I remember the things he said to me and taught me. And I told him about my future plans and how I thought everything was going to be good for my son and I. It seemed to make him really happy. I didn’t feel so great, but I tried to think of what I would want to hear if i was a parent, scared of dying and of how my kids would do without me.