Today started like any other. I woke up about a half an hour after I’d planned to. Took a shower, got dressed and packed up all my books and papers that I would be using for that day’s portion thesis writing. Later on, in the midst of my writer’s block, my mom calls. I text her back asking if I can call her later. She answers back, “No.”
Dad was missing. He hadn’t called into work, his car wasn’t at his apartment, he wasn’t answering his phone. I said I would try texting him and let her know. Anyway, this wasn’t the first time we had lost track of him. That time I think he was just playing a show and hadn’t bothered to tell anyone. So I texted him….nothing. Waited a while, wrote a few more distracted lines. And then decided I might as well check in with my mom again.
There was news. “Hospital,” the message read. I left my books and my laptop sitting on the table in the middle of the cafe and ran out to call my mom again. Yes, he had tried to drive himself to the hospital the night before, but ended up having to call an ambulance instead. Not getting enough oxygen. Sedated. Intubated. Wrong phone number on file. That’s why nobody knew until my mom, his still-loyal ex-wife, frantically started calling hospitals. He should be fine. He’s just out of it right now.
Then I start thinking. What if he wasn’t fine. He’s 62 and has a pacemaker, for goodness sake. I’ve finally crossed over to the point where I need to start worrying about the welfare of my parents. I want to call them up and tell them to get over whatever they had been fighting about before…even if the fight has been going for almost 30 years. They need to look after each other! But of course this is just a ridiculous impossibility. So now I’m just sitting here, waiting to hear some good news. Wondering how much more time I’ll get to have with my parents.
And wondering what the me from two years ago would have said after reading the above sentence. I think there would have been an exploding brain involved.