I have a long memory, in which some days stand out more than others. One such day is Friday, August 7, 1970. That is the day I last saw my father alive, the day my mother and I dragged him to the car.
He had come home after having a small stroke or TIA. He became very cold, and went to bed. Despite multiple blankets, comforters and puffs, he was still cold. I went in to check on him. He was lying on his right side, turned away from the open side of the bed, and he was shivering violently. I asked him if he was all right, if he needed anything. His voice was slurred as he said "bring me some meat, bring me meat, I'm hungry."
Knowing what I know now, he was in the midst of an evolving hypothalamic stroke. This is the part of the brain responsible for temperature regulation, appetite, and other regulatory functions. I didn't know any of that then. I told my mother he was behaving strangely, and by the time she was in the bedroom my father couldn't speak. It was apparent even to me he was having a stroke, and we helped him get to his feet. He took a couple of steps and then slumped against me, and my mother and I had to catch him to keep him from falling. We dragged him into the family room and sat him in the recliner. His tongue was hanging out of his slack mouth, his eyes were vacant and fixed. My mother began shouting at him, which I didn't understand, then told me and my sister to go outside. When we hesitated she repeated herself, and we left.
We stood in the front yard like people who have run out of a house on fire. They know there is a catastrophe happening but they can do nothing and have no role in it, so we walked aimlessly in a small circle, and came to a stop beside a small Japanese Maple that we had had planted for my sister a couple of years earlier. I said to my sister "I think Dad's going to die," and she told me not to talk like that. After a few minutes we were called back inside, and I helped drag my father to the car. That is the last I saw of him. Astonishingly, he recovered enough to speak to me on the phone the next day, then had a huge stroke that left him in a coma for a week, dying on Saturday, August 15.
It was several years before I saw my father in a dream. It was a numinous dream characterized by the bright, soft light of such spiritual experiences. His back was to me, and he did not acknowledge my calling to him. Over the years the dream would occur every year or so, and eventually he turned to me in my dream, smiling broadly but never speaking. A few years ago, after transplant, he appeared in a dream in a shopping mall parking lot. He was standing alone, and smiled at me. I asked him what he was doing there, to which I received no reply. Then I asked him if he needed a ride, and he walked with me to my car, the Mercedes S550 I had at that time. I asked him if he liked it, and he smiled and said it was a beautiful car, and got into the passenger seat. In this last dream, I had the overpowering sense of approval, of completion. He has never appeared to me again.
That sense of approval is something I have sought all my life in the waking world. As much as any experience, the events of August 7, 1970 left me feeling unsafe, ungrounded. I have worked hard to create a life, mainly by trying to create security and safety. When I was transplanted I eagerly looked forward to my nephrectomy as a way to finally remove the physical stigmata of polycystic kidney disease. While transplant is not a physical cure, emotionally it certainly was. What I had never had- normal renal function, either in myself or my father- was finally mine.
The rapid degradation of my transplant function has brought me forcibly back to stand beside the Japanese Maple. I feel insecure, unsafe, in the presence not of an emotionally reassuring treatment but rather a capricious death and incapacitation. I am forced to confront what I never wanted to think about again- that level of loss and insecurity. Martin Luther King's famous speech has always resonated powerfully and personally for me when he sketches a world where lions lie down with lambs, blacks and whites live in harmony, and people can shout they are free at last, free at last. I thought I was free. Now I'm not. The hardest task of my current situation is to look at that skinny, frightened 13 year-old and guide him through what must happen next. Maybe I have remembered it so vividly so that I have a chance to be free of my most primitive, personal fears at last. If I am fortunate enough to receive a second transplant, I hope I will be.
Ted
He had come home after having a small stroke or TIA. He became very cold, and went to bed. Despite multiple blankets, comforters and puffs, he was still cold. I went in to check on him. He was lying on his right side, turned away from the open side of the bed, and he was shivering violently. I asked him if he was all right, if he needed anything. His voice was slurred as he said "bring me some meat, bring me meat, I'm hungry."
Knowing what I know now, he was in the midst of an evolving hypothalamic stroke. This is the part of the brain responsible for temperature regulation, appetite, and other regulatory functions. I didn't know any of that then. I told my mother he was behaving strangely, and by the time she was in the bedroom my father couldn't speak. It was apparent even to me he was having a stroke, and we helped him get to his feet. He took a couple of steps and then slumped against me, and my mother and I had to catch him to keep him from falling. We dragged him into the family room and sat him in the recliner. His tongue was hanging out of his slack mouth, his eyes were vacant and fixed. My mother began shouting at him, which I didn't understand, then told me and my sister to go outside. When we hesitated she repeated herself, and we left.
We stood in the front yard like people who have run out of a house on fire. They know there is a catastrophe happening but they can do nothing and have no role in it, so we walked aimlessly in a small circle, and came to a stop beside a small Japanese Maple that we had had planted for my sister a couple of years earlier. I said to my sister "I think Dad's going to die," and she told me not to talk like that. After a few minutes we were called back inside, and I helped drag my father to the car. That is the last I saw of him. Astonishingly, he recovered enough to speak to me on the phone the next day, then had a huge stroke that left him in a coma for a week, dying on Saturday, August 15.
It was several years before I saw my father in a dream. It was a numinous dream characterized by the bright, soft light of such spiritual experiences. His back was to me, and he did not acknowledge my calling to him. Over the years the dream would occur every year or so, and eventually he turned to me in my dream, smiling broadly but never speaking. A few years ago, after transplant, he appeared in a dream in a shopping mall parking lot. He was standing alone, and smiled at me. I asked him what he was doing there, to which I received no reply. Then I asked him if he needed a ride, and he walked with me to my car, the Mercedes S550 I had at that time. I asked him if he liked it, and he smiled and said it was a beautiful car, and got into the passenger seat. In this last dream, I had the overpowering sense of approval, of completion. He has never appeared to me again.
That sense of approval is something I have sought all my life in the waking world. As much as any experience, the events of August 7, 1970 left me feeling unsafe, ungrounded. I have worked hard to create a life, mainly by trying to create security and safety. When I was transplanted I eagerly looked forward to my nephrectomy as a way to finally remove the physical stigmata of polycystic kidney disease. While transplant is not a physical cure, emotionally it certainly was. What I had never had- normal renal function, either in myself or my father- was finally mine.
The rapid degradation of my transplant function has brought me forcibly back to stand beside the Japanese Maple. I feel insecure, unsafe, in the presence not of an emotionally reassuring treatment but rather a capricious death and incapacitation. I am forced to confront what I never wanted to think about again- that level of loss and insecurity. Martin Luther King's famous speech has always resonated powerfully and personally for me when he sketches a world where lions lie down with lambs, blacks and whites live in harmony, and people can shout they are free at last, free at last. I thought I was free. Now I'm not. The hardest task of my current situation is to look at that skinny, frightened 13 year-old and guide him through what must happen next. Maybe I have remembered it so vividly so that I have a chance to be free of my most primitive, personal fears at last. If I am fortunate enough to receive a second transplant, I hope I will be.
Ted
"I thought I was free. Now I'm not." Ted Tsaltas
ReplyDelete"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" Michael Corleone
May you have the freedom that Michael Corleone did not.
-D-