Ten years on, Part 2

No, Tom, I didn't forget. I just missed my deadline, that's all.

I never will forget the day our father died, nor do I want to. Pain that deep merely ratifies love that is deeper. And that's something to be thankful for.

Dad died on August 11, 1998, after fooling us into thinking he would be OK after major surgery earlier that same day. The whole family had commandeered and occupied Sparrow Hospital's surgical waiting lounge all day while Dad had his cancerous kidney removed.

The surgery had been put off when Mom fell ill in July and then died on the 23rd. The doctors gave Dad a couple of weeks to grieve, but that tumor wasn't waiting around.

While Dad was in the so-called recovery room the surgeon told us it had gone well, and that while he was in there he repaired a hernia he'd noticed. He (unnecessarily, I thought) described the lengthy incision he'd made in Dad's abdomen, which produced a picture in my mind that I have never been able to shake.

The doctor said something like, "Later on we'll get him up to his room, get his butt out of bed and have him walk around a little bit." I've always wondered whether he came to regret the cavalier tone he took that day.

After that briefing most of us left the hospital, as it was early evening and we were all hungry. MLW and I met her father for dinner at Cheddar's; I don't remember what I ate but I do remember the big ceiling fans and that I had a beer or two, and I wasn't a drinker at that time.

After dinner MLW and I went to our hotel to freshen up, stopping off for a free cocktail in the lobby. I was feeling just slightly unsteady when we got back to the room. I noticed the message light blinking on the phone and knew in my gut that it was not good news.

The desk gave me a number to call and ask for Tom. Before I dialed I knew what Tom was going to tell me, but I didn't want to believe it.

I called. Tom asked me if I was sitting down. "Oh no," I said in that "Not again" tone. I was sitting on the arm of a couch.

Tom gave it to me straight: "Dad ... died."

I think I asked him for details and I suppose he told me, but I don't recall any of the rest of that conversation. I hung up the phone and kicked over a coffee table and started stomping around the hotel room, cursing and screaming and kicking and punching things. MLW put her hands on me, which had an instant (though temporary) calming effect. She gathered up her purse and our keys and we made for the hospital at high speed. I think I drove, though I was blind with unfocused rage, screaming and pounding the steering wheel. At least, that's the way I remember it.

We were among the last to make it back to the hospital. Almost everyone was standing out in the corridor instead of in the waiting lounge. I kept demanding that someone tell me what the hell happened because no one seemed able to explain it to my satisfaction. (It apparently was a pulmonary embolism that formed after the surgery.)

Someone, Maureen, I think, asked me if I wanted to go see Dad and led me back to where they had him. I think Pat came along too. I gotta say Dad looked pretty good lying there, all clean, covered with clean white linens neatly folded over at the chest with his arms lying exposed at his sides. He seemed to have a little smirk on his face.

"Dad ... What are you doing?" I asked him, almost expecting a reply. "What are you doing?" I touched his hairy right forearm with my right hand and his glistening pale forehead with my left. His arm -- that arm that I will always see stretched out to the top of the steering wheel of a station wagon -- was warm; his head -- that shiny dome that it seemed to me contained all the knowledge and wisdom in the world -- was cool.

After a minute or two of just laying my hands on him, taking in that sensation one last time and imprinting it, I leaned in close, kissed that cool, slightly clammy forehead and whispered to him the only words that came to mind: "Thank you. ... I'll see you there."