I know you're not ready to read all of this, nevertheless......
Well, as it happens in the course of one's life, I have reached another new plateau where my future is uncertain and I have a number of options open to me. It's a new dividing line between all that came before and all that is to come. Call it a new chapter. No, let's call it a new act and, as my habit over the last year or two has been to post very infrequently to my LJ, I will call today's very necessary post an entr'acte.
First of all, for the first time in over a decade, I am unemployed. The circumstances behind this situation are as appalling as they are lengthy to describe, so I'll just get to it:
It begins last summer. After having worked in the USF school of music for eight years, it finally became clear to me that, without significant actions on my part, my lot would never improve and that I would never receive what was rightfully mine: namely, a raise and some benefits (i.e. that which was promised to me when I took the job and which was given to every single person who had ever held the job before me). However, all along I didn't truly need to live off of the money I was making in the job. Being married can do that for you. Given the fact that my marriage was definitely on its way out, I needed to secure more lucrative employment simply in order to survive.
So, I had a meeting with THE WEASEL - our still-fairly-new departmental director. I laid out my case (8 years of peerless service, no raise, no bennies, enormous respect from faculty, staff, and students alike) and also presented a very high stack of recommendations I had secured from numerous faculty members beforehand. The Weasel's reaction?....
He encouraged me to quit.
So, I decided to do that very thing - but on my timetable. I decided that leaving abruptly during the second week of classes would be the most appropriate way to demonstrate my contempt for The Weasel's comedic "leadership" of the department: a misleadership which had just resulted in his public flogging via email straight from the dean, as well as truly spectacular upheaval, strife, and numerous resignations amongst the faculty and staff over the preceding two years. Suffice it to say that, as a result of his useless regime being in place, a number of faculty members were actually counseling prospective students to seek their education ELSEWHERE. Week two of classes also coincided with the final resignation of another long-time staff member of extremely high value to the department (again, because of The Weasel). Thus, although my quitting would negatively affect faculty and staff (a fact which I truly regretted), given the other faculty and staff resignations over the preceding years, it would have the happy effect of finally demonstrating to the dean that this incompetent fucking asshole really has to GO. I say this because, while the department could have limped along for a while without either of us, if we were BOTH gone, we simply would have been totally unable to function.
The day came and, after yet another fruitless noon meeting with The Weasel where I once more requested and was refused what was rightfully mine, I had a meeting with the assistant dean and informed her that I was not only gone, but precisely why as well. It took only an hour before a knock came upon my door, and The Weasel presented himself with all due humility. I was scarcely astonished to learn that, suddenly for some reason, I had somehow miraculously acquired value over the last few hours. Certainly enough value for The Weasel to begin earnestly discussing matters of a raise and benefits. I blew him off. Repeatedly. It was tremendous fun, actually. He was squirming like mad and finally asked me to join him for a long conversation, over the course of which, at his solicitation, I told him precisely why he was such a bastardly shit-for-brains and why I (and everyone else who had already quit) was moving on. He put on a quite good show of humility and brought up the fact that he had been sent to a number of clinics by the dean in order to address his very clear problems with those under his command. This was not news to me, and I questioned him as to why he had evidently managed to learn NOTHING from all of this professional attention to his significant personality and management problems.
Blah blah blah... time passed and he finally started saying things I wanted to hear. The upshot was that I had him firmly by the balls and he knew it. So....... he offered me the position of the just-departed staff member - with a raise and benefits. I took it. Meanwhile, he told me that he'd hire somebody to take over my old position as soon as possible. I, being stupid, took him at his word. I was also relieved not only to not have to leave the people, department, and atmosphere I had grown to love over the preceding eight years, but also to not have to go to the effort of seeking employment elsewhere. OK, so I'm stupid and lazy.
So, off I went in the new position. Given that it was a state job, the university still had to go through a search process, but in the case of somebody moving up through the ranks, this is always a simple formality which nobody takes seriously as they write the job description such that the person being moved up is the precise match. Actually, I not only went off in the new position, but I also continued doing my old job as well. Am I seriously fucking stupid or what?
Time passed. Lots of it. Almost the entire school year, to be precise. Sometime in late April, the job was finally listed and the search process began. Somehow I had managed to perform both jobs all this time - with incredible distinction. I was already well thought of in the department, but as a result of all of this, I had achieved legendary status - except for The Weasel - who had been carefully staying out of my way all this time. I was simply too fucking busy to think carefully about what was happening. Also, I have a kind of "service mentality" - I truly enjoy doing things for people and, although I was truly working my ass off, I liked being quite so important to the students and faculty.
More fool me.
As it turned out, they never did hire anyone to take over my old job or to provide one lick of assistance to me. I did everything without additional compensation or help of any sort. It was a pretty good deal for The Weasel. Finally, the search process went forward and I actually had to apply for and interview for the job I had been performing for the last nine months. Given the incredible job I had been doing all that time (as well as my sky-high status amongst faculty and students), I didn't take this very seriously. Who would? It's not like this sort of thing is ever taken seriously under such circumstances anyway. During finals week The Weasel came by my office to inform me that the search committee (consisting of him and three of my closest friends on the faculty/staff) had finished their deliberations and that they had decided to go with another candidate. He said that I was free to go back to my old job at my old salary and without benefits and that, when the new music building is completed in 2009, they will undoubtedly have additional staffing needs and that I was encouraged to apply for one of those jobs at that time.
Now how stupid am I?
Without exception, everyone who was informed of this outcome greeted the news with the precise same reaction: slack-jawed incredulity and a lengthy silence. Even the guy who was hired to take over my job couldn't believe what had happened.
So, I resigned. Incidentally, I was the last person left from the time before The Weasel came. Everyone else on the staff had already moved on (Except for Linda - but The Weasel is terrified of her because the first time he tried to pull any shit with her she filed an immediate and well-justified grievance and The Weasel backed off - besides she's retiring in December anyway). I put in my two weeks notice and proceeded to spend that two weeks sitting at my desk ignoring everything except for some arranging I had been contracted to do by a faculty member for an upcoming week-long workshop. I am presently looking into a legal redressing of this negative and extremely unfair job situation outcome, but I have other fish to fry first.
Namely, two weeks ago I had what is called, in technical terms, a mild myocardial infarction.
Yes, I had a fucking heart attack.
It started with me sitting on the couch working on what turned out to be a fairly spectacular arrangement (if I do say so myself - and I do) of the Holst E-flat Suite for a smaller wind ensemble for yet another week-long clinic. It felt as if somebody had inserted a small bulb just under my heart and began inflating it slowly. It didn't even hurt, I just began to feel a "fullness" in my chest and stood up and began thinking "Hmmmmm. Is it what I think it is or am I just uncomfortable from sitting badly on this not terribly comfortable couch?" I walked around a bit considering this situation when I began to feel a very mild pain in my right carotid followed by a very mild nausea. Now it was clear that I had better do something, so I had my girlfriend get a hold of a friend of ours to drive us in my car to the ER (as she couldn't drive my car and her own car was off being borrowed by somebody else).
In I went. They gave me an EKG and found nothing. They gave me a heart stress test and found nothing. They did an ultrasound and found nothing. However, my enzyme levels were off, so they knew that I had had some kind of heart attack, but they couldn't find anything specifically wrong. This all transpired on Friday night starting at aboot 11PM. By now it was early Saturday morning, so they admitted me to the hospital and told me they'd scheduled a catheterization test for Monday morning. I spent the weekend in the ICU finishing up my arrangement (on the MacBook I bought myself this past February - and which I love very very much) and watching The Discovery Channel. Monday morning came and, after the test, I was informed that I had two serious blockages around the back of my heart and that I was now scheduled for double bypass surgery on the following Thursday morning (June 21).
My, how things change.
Now, given that I had just resigned from my job I was actually in a bit of a financial pickle - to say the least. Said pickle was going to be significantly worse except for the fact that I had, by chance, chosen my effective resignation date as being June 1. As a result, I was covered by my outgoing insurance benefits for the month of June by PURE LUCK. Otherwise, I would have been well and truly FUCKED. I actually thought I WAS fucked for several days before I found out that, because of my exit date, I just happened to have been covered. By now I have extended my coverage with COBRA, but things are still not all rainbows and puppy dogs.
The Thursday morning came, and off they wheeled me. Before surgery I laid there on the gurney considering things. Although it was unlikely, there was in fact a probability greater than zero that I wouldn't make it. But, I really was not afraid. I assessed my own life up to that point and, though I couldn't give myself perfect marks, I knew that I had simply done the best I could and that things could not have gone any other way. I wasn't satisfied, yet I wasn't about to kick my own ass too much about it either. My passage through this world had been very positive for a lot of people whom I've touched and helped along thus far. I did not make peace with my maker, nor did I offer any sort of solicitation for mercy to any sort of Cosmic Entity. I knew that whatever was going to happen was going to happen completely without regard to my opinion on these matters. I was well and truly in a foxhole - yet I remained an atheist. Thus, let's just call that myth busted once and for all.
I went under at around 1130AM and, though the surgery itself only took about two and a half hours, I stayed under until about 830PM that night. That first hour awake in recovery was the worst one. I had a breathing tube in my throat, and every breath in or out was accompanied by significant pain. I am very glad that I was wise enough to have quit smoking a year and a half ago, still it was not like skipping gaily through a verdant meadow accompanied by laughing fauns and faery sprites. I passed in and out of consciousness for several hours - much preferring the lack of consciousness. I was on morphine for hours as well. And that's another thing: I remain extremely disappointed at my findings with these Big-Deal Drugs. Over the years I've been told all sorts of nifty shit abut getting cool drugs for getting your wisdom teeth out and for surgery, yet when the time comes, it's always a huge let-down. While on morphine, I did not, in fact, witness the Aztec Spaceships taking me off to Orion to commune with Elves of Narnia (or whatever). All I got was less pain. I've never gotten a nanosecond of kickass drug visuals or anything of the sort. It must not be in my makeup, but I just don't get off on Big-Deal Drugs. What a bummer. It would have made the experience munch nicer to have at least gotten a mild hallucination or some narcotically satisfying feeling of euphoria - but I got nuthin'.
By Friday morning I was completely awake and coherent. I even went for a walk around the nurses station - dragging my oxygen and IVs behind me. Over the next few days I continued getting better, taking walks, receiving visitors (with several very significant absences who shall remain nameless - thanks for nothing, ASSHOLES. You definitely find out who your friends are when something like this happens to you). I was scheduled to get booted out on Monday, but it turned out to happen Tuesday before last (June 26).
By now, I'm back home again with a whole barge full of instructions of every type. I can't go job-hunting anytime soon, either. Not only can I not drive, I can't even ride in the front seat of a car for at least four weeks. The mildest fender-bender which deployed the airbag would result in my chest caving in followed closely by my unpleasant expiration. So, I'm sitting here all day long taking one or another of my NINE new prescriptions, working on my aspirometer, watching TV, reading scores, taking walks, and thinking about all that I have yet to accomplish.
Back in late October I began speaking to my father again (after having hung up on him the preceding father's day when, as I tried to explain how I had been in therapy for the last year and was still pretty fucked-up by the combination of my childhood horrors and my parents' extreme emotional absenteeism and how I really really needed to talk to him about it, I realized that he wasn't listening and didn't really appear to give a fuck). My sister had called and told me that he was heading downhill via cancer (In my opinion, probably as a result of his years working with pesticides and, given that I helped him for a few years in this, it doesn't bode well for me either) and that, though I had planned a Thanksgiving visit, I probably shouldn't wait that long. So, I headed up to SC two weeks before Thanksgiving.
He was indeed heading downhill fast. By this time he was bedridden and had become very weak. Still, he hung on. We didn't talk very much and, when we did, I didn't bring up anything of any emotional consequence. It was plain that the time for any talk of that sort had long gone by and that there was nothing left to do but to be nearby and to watch him slowly drift away. On the last day he was conscious, his eyes had completely lost their deep-blue color, and by this I knew that his end could not be very far off. He finally went into a coma over the weekend and, though I was in the house and nearby, I knew that I didn't want to watch him die. I had watched my mother-in-law die some years before, and it's not something I'd care to ever see again. Besides, he had no idea if I was there or not, and we were never much comfort to one another anyway. As I walked around on the porch on his last night I could hear his labored breathing drifting though the open window nearby and, when I heard a few racking coughs followed by silence, I knew that The Time had come. My sister was with him when IT happened, and my stepmother was in the kitchen. I walked into his room and gazed down at his lifeless body. I confess that I felt almost nothing.
The hospice care nurse went about removing his catheter and disposing of his drugs (among them, his bottle of morphine drops which I had taken to calling "St. Joseph's Cherry-Flavored Morphine For Children") and having me and my step-mom sign various papers. My step-mom, being a total drama queen, simply would not stand for having him hauled away by the mortuary guys wearing the clothes he had expired in, and she pressed me into helping her strip and re-dress him in some of his most comfortable and familiar clothes. This entailed something which actually kind of fucked me up a bit. Though I really wanted to have nothing to do with it, I nevertheless helped her strip him naked and dressed his lifeless and cooling ragdoll body in fresh underwear and a set of sweatgear of which he had been fond.
A day or two later during his viewing at the funeral home, I made myself quite scarce. This was quite likely thought of as fairly scandalous by those present, but I didn't give a fuck - and I still don't. Though there were lots of relatives present whom I had not seen in many years, I didn't want to see any of them. Why should I? Though we share some genetic data, they have always been and will always be strangers to me. I owe them nothing.
Something else had happened which also kind of fucked me up a bit as well. During the time before the bulk of the people arrived, I had time by myself to stand before his coffin and regard his corpse. Being a person who is generally inclined to notice small details, by my observations it became clear to me just how much the mortuary profession has come to rely upon cyanoacrylate adhesives. To wit, his eyes and mouth had been super-glued shut. I also noticed later that flash photos taken with a digital camera causes the adhesive to appear white. Not only that, but it was clear to me that his hands folded over his abdomen were staying in place because his fingers had been super-glued together - and not entirely carefully either. The glue had run down the sides of one of his fingers. Fucking EWWWWW!
We buried him the day before Thanksgiving. As an Air Force retiree, he was buried with full military honors. It's too bad he missed it because he would have very much enjoyed his own funeral. The Air Force honor guard did a really great job. I attended the funeral services in pretty much the same emotional state as I had attended my mother's funeral some six years earlier: ANGER. Little has changed since. I'd like to let it all go, but nothing's there anymore. Hence, back to therapy for me. All that's left is the anger.
Thus, given all of that, I reckon I should be surprised if I DIDN'T just have a fucking heart attack.
First of all, for the first time in over a decade, I am unemployed. The circumstances behind this situation are as appalling as they are lengthy to describe, so I'll just get to it:
It begins last summer. After having worked in the USF school of music for eight years, it finally became clear to me that, without significant actions on my part, my lot would never improve and that I would never receive what was rightfully mine: namely, a raise and some benefits (i.e. that which was promised to me when I took the job and which was given to every single person who had ever held the job before me). However, all along I didn't truly need to live off of the money I was making in the job. Being married can do that for you. Given the fact that my marriage was definitely on its way out, I needed to secure more lucrative employment simply in order to survive.
So, I had a meeting with THE WEASEL - our still-fairly-new departmental director. I laid out my case (8 years of peerless service, no raise, no bennies, enormous respect from faculty, staff, and students alike) and also presented a very high stack of recommendations I had secured from numerous faculty members beforehand. The Weasel's reaction?....
He encouraged me to quit.
So, I decided to do that very thing - but on my timetable. I decided that leaving abruptly during the second week of classes would be the most appropriate way to demonstrate my contempt for The Weasel's comedic "leadership" of the department: a misleadership which had just resulted in his public flogging via email straight from the dean, as well as truly spectacular upheaval, strife, and numerous resignations amongst the faculty and staff over the preceding two years. Suffice it to say that, as a result of his useless regime being in place, a number of faculty members were actually counseling prospective students to seek their education ELSEWHERE. Week two of classes also coincided with the final resignation of another long-time staff member of extremely high value to the department (again, because of The Weasel). Thus, although my quitting would negatively affect faculty and staff (a fact which I truly regretted), given the other faculty and staff resignations over the preceding years, it would have the happy effect of finally demonstrating to the dean that this incompetent fucking asshole really has to GO. I say this because, while the department could have limped along for a while without either of us, if we were BOTH gone, we simply would have been totally unable to function.
The day came and, after yet another fruitless noon meeting with The Weasel where I once more requested and was refused what was rightfully mine, I had a meeting with the assistant dean and informed her that I was not only gone, but precisely why as well. It took only an hour before a knock came upon my door, and The Weasel presented himself with all due humility. I was scarcely astonished to learn that, suddenly for some reason, I had somehow miraculously acquired value over the last few hours. Certainly enough value for The Weasel to begin earnestly discussing matters of a raise and benefits. I blew him off. Repeatedly. It was tremendous fun, actually. He was squirming like mad and finally asked me to join him for a long conversation, over the course of which, at his solicitation, I told him precisely why he was such a bastardly shit-for-brains and why I (and everyone else who had already quit) was moving on. He put on a quite good show of humility and brought up the fact that he had been sent to a number of clinics by the dean in order to address his very clear problems with those under his command. This was not news to me, and I questioned him as to why he had evidently managed to learn NOTHING from all of this professional attention to his significant personality and management problems.
Blah blah blah... time passed and he finally started saying things I wanted to hear. The upshot was that I had him firmly by the balls and he knew it. So....... he offered me the position of the just-departed staff member - with a raise and benefits. I took it. Meanwhile, he told me that he'd hire somebody to take over my old position as soon as possible. I, being stupid, took him at his word. I was also relieved not only to not have to leave the people, department, and atmosphere I had grown to love over the preceding eight years, but also to not have to go to the effort of seeking employment elsewhere. OK, so I'm stupid and lazy.
So, off I went in the new position. Given that it was a state job, the university still had to go through a search process, but in the case of somebody moving up through the ranks, this is always a simple formality which nobody takes seriously as they write the job description such that the person being moved up is the precise match. Actually, I not only went off in the new position, but I also continued doing my old job as well. Am I seriously fucking stupid or what?
Time passed. Lots of it. Almost the entire school year, to be precise. Sometime in late April, the job was finally listed and the search process began. Somehow I had managed to perform both jobs all this time - with incredible distinction. I was already well thought of in the department, but as a result of all of this, I had achieved legendary status - except for The Weasel - who had been carefully staying out of my way all this time. I was simply too fucking busy to think carefully about what was happening. Also, I have a kind of "service mentality" - I truly enjoy doing things for people and, although I was truly working my ass off, I liked being quite so important to the students and faculty.
More fool me.
As it turned out, they never did hire anyone to take over my old job or to provide one lick of assistance to me. I did everything without additional compensation or help of any sort. It was a pretty good deal for The Weasel. Finally, the search process went forward and I actually had to apply for and interview for the job I had been performing for the last nine months. Given the incredible job I had been doing all that time (as well as my sky-high status amongst faculty and students), I didn't take this very seriously. Who would? It's not like this sort of thing is ever taken seriously under such circumstances anyway. During finals week The Weasel came by my office to inform me that the search committee (consisting of him and three of my closest friends on the faculty/staff) had finished their deliberations and that they had decided to go with another candidate. He said that I was free to go back to my old job at my old salary and without benefits and that, when the new music building is completed in 2009, they will undoubtedly have additional staffing needs and that I was encouraged to apply for one of those jobs at that time.
Now how stupid am I?
Without exception, everyone who was informed of this outcome greeted the news with the precise same reaction: slack-jawed incredulity and a lengthy silence. Even the guy who was hired to take over my job couldn't believe what had happened.
So, I resigned. Incidentally, I was the last person left from the time before The Weasel came. Everyone else on the staff had already moved on (Except for Linda - but The Weasel is terrified of her because the first time he tried to pull any shit with her she filed an immediate and well-justified grievance and The Weasel backed off - besides she's retiring in December anyway). I put in my two weeks notice and proceeded to spend that two weeks sitting at my desk ignoring everything except for some arranging I had been contracted to do by a faculty member for an upcoming week-long workshop. I am presently looking into a legal redressing of this negative and extremely unfair job situation outcome, but I have other fish to fry first.
Namely, two weeks ago I had what is called, in technical terms, a mild myocardial infarction.
Yes, I had a fucking heart attack.
It started with me sitting on the couch working on what turned out to be a fairly spectacular arrangement (if I do say so myself - and I do) of the Holst E-flat Suite for a smaller wind ensemble for yet another week-long clinic. It felt as if somebody had inserted a small bulb just under my heart and began inflating it slowly. It didn't even hurt, I just began to feel a "fullness" in my chest and stood up and began thinking "Hmmmmm. Is it what I think it is or am I just uncomfortable from sitting badly on this not terribly comfortable couch?" I walked around a bit considering this situation when I began to feel a very mild pain in my right carotid followed by a very mild nausea. Now it was clear that I had better do something, so I had my girlfriend get a hold of a friend of ours to drive us in my car to the ER (as she couldn't drive my car and her own car was off being borrowed by somebody else).
In I went. They gave me an EKG and found nothing. They gave me a heart stress test and found nothing. They did an ultrasound and found nothing. However, my enzyme levels were off, so they knew that I had had some kind of heart attack, but they couldn't find anything specifically wrong. This all transpired on Friday night starting at aboot 11PM. By now it was early Saturday morning, so they admitted me to the hospital and told me they'd scheduled a catheterization test for Monday morning. I spent the weekend in the ICU finishing up my arrangement (on the MacBook I bought myself this past February - and which I love very very much) and watching The Discovery Channel. Monday morning came and, after the test, I was informed that I had two serious blockages around the back of my heart and that I was now scheduled for double bypass surgery on the following Thursday morning (June 21).
My, how things change.
Now, given that I had just resigned from my job I was actually in a bit of a financial pickle - to say the least. Said pickle was going to be significantly worse except for the fact that I had, by chance, chosen my effective resignation date as being June 1. As a result, I was covered by my outgoing insurance benefits for the month of June by PURE LUCK. Otherwise, I would have been well and truly FUCKED. I actually thought I WAS fucked for several days before I found out that, because of my exit date, I just happened to have been covered. By now I have extended my coverage with COBRA, but things are still not all rainbows and puppy dogs.
The Thursday morning came, and off they wheeled me. Before surgery I laid there on the gurney considering things. Although it was unlikely, there was in fact a probability greater than zero that I wouldn't make it. But, I really was not afraid. I assessed my own life up to that point and, though I couldn't give myself perfect marks, I knew that I had simply done the best I could and that things could not have gone any other way. I wasn't satisfied, yet I wasn't about to kick my own ass too much about it either. My passage through this world had been very positive for a lot of people whom I've touched and helped along thus far. I did not make peace with my maker, nor did I offer any sort of solicitation for mercy to any sort of Cosmic Entity. I knew that whatever was going to happen was going to happen completely without regard to my opinion on these matters. I was well and truly in a foxhole - yet I remained an atheist. Thus, let's just call that myth busted once and for all.
I went under at around 1130AM and, though the surgery itself only took about two and a half hours, I stayed under until about 830PM that night. That first hour awake in recovery was the worst one. I had a breathing tube in my throat, and every breath in or out was accompanied by significant pain. I am very glad that I was wise enough to have quit smoking a year and a half ago, still it was not like skipping gaily through a verdant meadow accompanied by laughing fauns and faery sprites. I passed in and out of consciousness for several hours - much preferring the lack of consciousness. I was on morphine for hours as well. And that's another thing: I remain extremely disappointed at my findings with these Big-Deal Drugs. Over the years I've been told all sorts of nifty shit abut getting cool drugs for getting your wisdom teeth out and for surgery, yet when the time comes, it's always a huge let-down. While on morphine, I did not, in fact, witness the Aztec Spaceships taking me off to Orion to commune with Elves of Narnia (or whatever). All I got was less pain. I've never gotten a nanosecond of kickass drug visuals or anything of the sort. It must not be in my makeup, but I just don't get off on Big-Deal Drugs. What a bummer. It would have made the experience munch nicer to have at least gotten a mild hallucination or some narcotically satisfying feeling of euphoria - but I got nuthin'.
By Friday morning I was completely awake and coherent. I even went for a walk around the nurses station - dragging my oxygen and IVs behind me. Over the next few days I continued getting better, taking walks, receiving visitors (with several very significant absences who shall remain nameless - thanks for nothing, ASSHOLES. You definitely find out who your friends are when something like this happens to you). I was scheduled to get booted out on Monday, but it turned out to happen Tuesday before last (June 26).
By now, I'm back home again with a whole barge full of instructions of every type. I can't go job-hunting anytime soon, either. Not only can I not drive, I can't even ride in the front seat of a car for at least four weeks. The mildest fender-bender which deployed the airbag would result in my chest caving in followed closely by my unpleasant expiration. So, I'm sitting here all day long taking one or another of my NINE new prescriptions, working on my aspirometer, watching TV, reading scores, taking walks, and thinking about all that I have yet to accomplish.
Back in late October I began speaking to my father again (after having hung up on him the preceding father's day when, as I tried to explain how I had been in therapy for the last year and was still pretty fucked-up by the combination of my childhood horrors and my parents' extreme emotional absenteeism and how I really really needed to talk to him about it, I realized that he wasn't listening and didn't really appear to give a fuck). My sister had called and told me that he was heading downhill via cancer (In my opinion, probably as a result of his years working with pesticides and, given that I helped him for a few years in this, it doesn't bode well for me either) and that, though I had planned a Thanksgiving visit, I probably shouldn't wait that long. So, I headed up to SC two weeks before Thanksgiving.
He was indeed heading downhill fast. By this time he was bedridden and had become very weak. Still, he hung on. We didn't talk very much and, when we did, I didn't bring up anything of any emotional consequence. It was plain that the time for any talk of that sort had long gone by and that there was nothing left to do but to be nearby and to watch him slowly drift away. On the last day he was conscious, his eyes had completely lost their deep-blue color, and by this I knew that his end could not be very far off. He finally went into a coma over the weekend and, though I was in the house and nearby, I knew that I didn't want to watch him die. I had watched my mother-in-law die some years before, and it's not something I'd care to ever see again. Besides, he had no idea if I was there or not, and we were never much comfort to one another anyway. As I walked around on the porch on his last night I could hear his labored breathing drifting though the open window nearby and, when I heard a few racking coughs followed by silence, I knew that The Time had come. My sister was with him when IT happened, and my stepmother was in the kitchen. I walked into his room and gazed down at his lifeless body. I confess that I felt almost nothing.
The hospice care nurse went about removing his catheter and disposing of his drugs (among them, his bottle of morphine drops which I had taken to calling "St. Joseph's Cherry-Flavored Morphine For Children") and having me and my step-mom sign various papers. My step-mom, being a total drama queen, simply would not stand for having him hauled away by the mortuary guys wearing the clothes he had expired in, and she pressed me into helping her strip and re-dress him in some of his most comfortable and familiar clothes. This entailed something which actually kind of fucked me up a bit. Though I really wanted to have nothing to do with it, I nevertheless helped her strip him naked and dressed his lifeless and cooling ragdoll body in fresh underwear and a set of sweatgear of which he had been fond.
A day or two later during his viewing at the funeral home, I made myself quite scarce. This was quite likely thought of as fairly scandalous by those present, but I didn't give a fuck - and I still don't. Though there were lots of relatives present whom I had not seen in many years, I didn't want to see any of them. Why should I? Though we share some genetic data, they have always been and will always be strangers to me. I owe them nothing.
Something else had happened which also kind of fucked me up a bit as well. During the time before the bulk of the people arrived, I had time by myself to stand before his coffin and regard his corpse. Being a person who is generally inclined to notice small details, by my observations it became clear to me just how much the mortuary profession has come to rely upon cyanoacrylate adhesives. To wit, his eyes and mouth had been super-glued shut. I also noticed later that flash photos taken with a digital camera causes the adhesive to appear white. Not only that, but it was clear to me that his hands folded over his abdomen were staying in place because his fingers had been super-glued together - and not entirely carefully either. The glue had run down the sides of one of his fingers. Fucking EWWWWW!
We buried him the day before Thanksgiving. As an Air Force retiree, he was buried with full military honors. It's too bad he missed it because he would have very much enjoyed his own funeral. The Air Force honor guard did a really great job. I attended the funeral services in pretty much the same emotional state as I had attended my mother's funeral some six years earlier: ANGER. Little has changed since. I'd like to let it all go, but nothing's there anymore. Hence, back to therapy for me. All that's left is the anger.
Thus, given all of that, I reckon I should be surprised if I DIDN'T just have a fucking heart attack.