I posted a picture of me dressed in my oh so fashionable hospital gown on Instagram and got a handful of questions and a couple of telephone calls afterwards.
A few people asked if I was looking for attention and I said I didn’t think so and that I probably would have posted the picture on Facebook if I was.
I have thought about the question a few times since because I obviously wrote about some of my thoughts and feelings, just look at What Did The Pathology Report Say?
Something about the moment reminded me a bit of April 2004 but I am not sure what it was.
I can tell you about talking to my father just before they were going to put him on the ventilator and the flight from LA to Newark not knowing if he would be dead or alive when I got there.
I can tell you about how I lied to my grandfather about Dad’s real condition and how several months later Grandpa and I battled about his flying to New Jersey to bring his son home.
It was one of the few times in my life that my grandfather and I fought. He had figured out long before that I had lied to him about Dad’s condition.
I thought about how Dad had a triple bypass two days before my daughter was born. I thought about my almost four year-old son trying to figure out how he was going to become a big brother and how he asked when his other grandfather would come home.
“He’ll need to meet the baby and see me be a great big brother.”
My maternal grandfather called and told me he knew my dad had to be in bad shape. “I spoke with your mother, it doesn’t sound good. I may be 90, but I can still help. Tell me what you need.”
“Grandpa, I need you to take care of grandma, I’ll handle the rest.”
He asked me about my other grandfather, “Sam is 90 too, but it never goes away. You’re always a father, you understand that now, don’t you.”
Order The Suck My Kosher Salami Salad
“So you’re the patriarch now.”
I nodded and told him that I had been for almost seven years. “They are all gone now, except for the memories and I have plenty of those. I can tell many of the stories as well as those I once learned them from and if I can’t, well very few can dispute it.
That is the joy of therapy, we can call it like we see it.”
He asks me if I have reached out to share the story of my biopsy with some specific people and I shake my head no.
“If I find out I am dying I will probably do so but thus far I haven’t. I am angry at how I have been treated and am at the point where I don’t know if I’ll listen to what they have to say or suggest they order the suck my Kosher Salami salad.”
“Is that a common expression you use?”
“Nope, just came up with it now. I am come up with lots of things on the fly, some are pretty good and some less so. I may not be employed as a writer now but it is still in my blood.”
****
I am on the phone with my daughter. She wants to know how the biopsy went and I tell her it must have gone ok because we’re speaking.
She can’t hear the memory reel inside my head of my calling Dad the day she was born and asking him how he was doing.
“You had a triple bypass two days ago and now you have a new granddaughter. How are you feeling?”
He says he feels like a buffalo sat on his chest and asks for details about her. I tell him I’ll email some pictures to mom and they can see a beautiful baby girl.
Neither of us know he’ll die on her 14th birthday and that every year I’ll relive some of these moments in July.
****
The end of August of ’24 will stand out in my memory as the time some things broke and I decided I could not live the same way I had been living any longer. I’ll look at this post and remember some of it.
Got me thinking a bit of Plenty of Time and yet not at all. Got me thinking of What If They Never Read Your Letter?
I close my eyes, feel the sticky residue of glue from the bandage they stuck on me and figure I ought to scrub it off.
It doesn’t really bother me but I don’t really need it. Gets me thinking about how I shaved my head again and how different I look without hair.
Figure I’ll let it grow out and keep it tight up top.
Inside my head there is a memory of a kid who was taunting me, asking “Do you want to dance with death” and my response.
I smacked him on the side of the head. It was hard enough to knock him down but not hard enough to take the offending object off of its neck.
That is a good thing, no need for jail.
Memory is fuzzy, how old was I, were we when that happened. It was a different world and a different lifetime. I can’t answer Was It A Total Eclipse Of Reality?
People ask a variety of questions on all sorts of different topics and I can’t tell them what I will or won’t do because I am not yet certain.
It is not for lack of willingness, capability or anything other than I have suspended some things in time.
If I am not dying I don’t have to make a final decision today or tomorrow about what direction I want to head in. I have time to wait, watch and evaluate.
In my head I hear another voice ask “do you want to dance with death” and feel myself smile. When Dad was dying and we didn’t know how long he would fight off pancreatic cancer I told him I’d fight the cancer.
“Tell it to come out and meet me in single combat. Tell it there is a younger Wilner who is ready to fight all night and all day if need be. I have got this Dad.”
He rolled his eyes and I asked him whether he expected anything different.
“I am not a fan of this not being able to do anything.”
He told me to take care of my family, my mom and sisters. “You can do that, there is nothing more you can do here.”
****
I hear echoes of memories and voices. I hear people asking me questions including why I am so quiet. I don’t respond or acknowledge them.
I have gone deep inside and I barely know anyone is there. Inside my head I hear an old Irish blessing and recognize I am well into the hero’s journey and that when I get to the end things will be very different than they are now.
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
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