"It is better to be lucky than to be smart"
Spending so much time at my parents' house meant I saw my father declining up close. In the 9 months since Lexan's birth, I watched my dad go from mostly alert, except in the evenings or when he was having a bad day, to never having good days. He'd complain of dizziness in a way that got terribly dramatic by my last visit. I told my siblings to make sure to visit and kept asking my mother why he was dizzy. She said it was his eyes, which he refused to get treated because the doctor said it could only be done once and my dad was worried about going blind in his old age. (He's 87.)
Then Thursday, while hanging out with my mother and his in-laws at the doctor's office - because he can't drive and he refuses to be parted from my mother - he asked to see a doctor. They squished him in and after listening to his symptoms, gave him an EKG. And then told my mother to drive him to the ER immediately. (She disobeyed and dropped my grandparents off first.) He's been in the hospital since then, because apparently the signal coordinating his upper and lower chambers was lost and he was just damn lucky the whole thing hadn't stopped altogether. They weren't sure if he had Lyme disease - what with spending 40-odd years working in fields in Connecticut - that damaged his heart or if he was just old, but they put in a temporary pacemaker and will put in a permanent one today. Meanwhile he's been cantankerous and regularly threatening to leave the hospital because he doesn't like that he has to call the nurse to pee.
We came to visit yesterday, as soon as we could after returning from Margate where we retrieved Jon's son (and took Lexan to the beach for the first time). He looks better than he has in months - better color and more alert - it's like your heart not pumping for seconds at a time is bad for you or something. Jon commented that his better health highlights his terrible memory and when it turned into a rally of my mother's siblings, we left. We stopped at my brother's house to see his family: his kids are more strong-willed than ever, but it was fun for all concerned.
When we left their house, I saw a missed call from my ex-boss' wife. She =never= calls and indeed, asked how I knew she'd called. Turns out my ex-boss had a massive stroke, possibly several, and passed away. She's always been a little clueless about handling the modern world, possibly because she hasn't been answerable to anyone for decades, and was so bewildered, I almost called her back to make suggestions about how to make arrangements (despite never having done so in my life). She asked me if I knew a rabbi in NJ, which I later realized was a bizarre question considering her husband wasn't Jewish. I'll be spending the day calling our former colleagues and possibly looking for venues for a memorial service. Being behind on my mourning posts (before this morning!) makes the contrast with Tigger's passing unavoidable. After my last lunch with my ex-boss, I thought he was passing into irrelevance and wondered what he'd do with himself: I guess the guy in the sky had plans. My ex-boss and his wife were odd ducks, but they had each other. How does a lone duck survive?
Then Thursday, while hanging out with my mother and his in-laws at the doctor's office - because he can't drive and he refuses to be parted from my mother - he asked to see a doctor. They squished him in and after listening to his symptoms, gave him an EKG. And then told my mother to drive him to the ER immediately. (She disobeyed and dropped my grandparents off first.) He's been in the hospital since then, because apparently the signal coordinating his upper and lower chambers was lost and he was just damn lucky the whole thing hadn't stopped altogether. They weren't sure if he had Lyme disease - what with spending 40-odd years working in fields in Connecticut - that damaged his heart or if he was just old, but they put in a temporary pacemaker and will put in a permanent one today. Meanwhile he's been cantankerous and regularly threatening to leave the hospital because he doesn't like that he has to call the nurse to pee.
We came to visit yesterday, as soon as we could after returning from Margate where we retrieved Jon's son (and took Lexan to the beach for the first time). He looks better than he has in months - better color and more alert - it's like your heart not pumping for seconds at a time is bad for you or something. Jon commented that his better health highlights his terrible memory and when it turned into a rally of my mother's siblings, we left. We stopped at my brother's house to see his family: his kids are more strong-willed than ever, but it was fun for all concerned.
When we left their house, I saw a missed call from my ex-boss' wife. She =never= calls and indeed, asked how I knew she'd called. Turns out my ex-boss had a massive stroke, possibly several, and passed away. She's always been a little clueless about handling the modern world, possibly because she hasn't been answerable to anyone for decades, and was so bewildered, I almost called her back to make suggestions about how to make arrangements (despite never having done so in my life). She asked me if I knew a rabbi in NJ, which I later realized was a bizarre question considering her husband wasn't Jewish. I'll be spending the day calling our former colleagues and possibly looking for venues for a memorial service. Being behind on my mourning posts (before this morning!) makes the contrast with Tigger's passing unavoidable. After my last lunch with my ex-boss, I thought he was passing into irrelevance and wondered what he'd do with himself: I guess the guy in the sky had plans. My ex-boss and his wife were odd ducks, but they had each other. How does a lone duck survive?