The hospital

I went to visit him on Christmas Eve. His brother, Bob, was there. Bob is Dad's youngest brother, only ten years older than I. His brother Paul was there as well, but I didn't recognize him so well cuz he's been in and out of the program (AA) so much. But he says he's 9 or 11 years sober now--I forget which. Anyway, when I got there, Bob hugged me and Paul was like, "I'm Paul," as if to answer my unasked question. But he didn't know that I already knew because I cheated. He still had his work clothes on, complete with name tag. There was also this lady Judy there, a woman with whom Dad works, not to be confused with his almost-ex-wife, Judy. And work Judy's husband was there too. She brought him gifts and left them by his bedside.

His eyes were open but it wasn't scary. He stared at me a lot, but really, what else could he do? He couldn't speak, though he certainly did try. I told him about what I'd been doing the past 5 or 6 years--school, work, etc. My mother was all, "Rich, I love you," and "Rich, you'll make it through." She was sitting on the other side of him, all dramatic, saying, "Rich, if you don't want me talking to you anymore, squeeze my hand...twice...." I leaned over and was like, "Uh, Mom, I'm not so sure the fine motor skills have kicked in yet...." So she modified her request. "Rich, if you'd rather be alone with Melissa right now, let go of my hand." And what did he go and do but fling her arm halfway across the room. Now that's progress.

Then Mom and Paul were giving each other phone numbers and other such information, and Dad kept trying to lift his head to see what they were doing. So I told him. "They're just exchanging information, Dad," as casually as I could. But really what they were doing was unbarred flirting, and there was something that was just really wrong about that.

One thing that got to me was when work Judy was asking me questions and stuff. She was just getting ready to leave and said something like, "You've grown into such a lovely lady. Your father talks about you all the time. I bet you didn't know that." And, in truth, I didn't. Not to mention that I'd never seen the woman before in my life. And now I feel bad, because I tried my hardest not to think about them at all. It was easier than splitting the holidays between two families, easier than dealing with two families' worth of gossip and scandal, easier than having the most intimate conversations with my father be about his latest car trouble. So yes, it did surprise me. A lot.

On Christmas, it snowed more than three feet, so I didn't go to the hospital to visit him like I wanted to, for the holiday. Somewhere during those few days, I did get to speak with my brother Ryan on the telephone. He was pretty quiet. And then came the day after Christmas. My sister Sarah and I had gone to see "Harry Potter" that afternoon. And I didn't expect to stop at Blockbuster on the way back home after dropping her off at Tom's. But suddenly, there I was, in the parking lot. At the front window, peering in. At the front counter. At the register. I wasn't sure it was him at first, but when he looked at me in shock, there was no mistaking it. He hugged me and I had to steady myself on his shoulders because I was shaking so bad. Couldn't even hide it. We talked for a while, and then I gave him a ride home from work.

That's when I saw Ryan. Who was still very quiet. And feeling very guilty. On the day of Dad's accident, Ryan was supposed to go with him to get his driver's permit. But, at the last minute, Ryan made plans with his girlfriend and decided not to go. I tried to explain to Ryan that he wouldn't be getting his permit at 2 in the morning, and of course the old cliché that everything happens for a reason, which is to say that I would not be sitting in his livingroom for an hour talking with him if this had not happened. And Rick feels guilty because he hadn't seen Dad since some time before his own (Rick's) birthday, which was November 22nd. And now Rick was trying to avoid visiting Dad because he breaks down after every single time. He didn't go on Christmas because he slept until 5 pm.

So I brought him up the following afternoon. I'd already promised Dad that I'd come up one more time before I left back for NY. Rick said he liked me bringing him cuz then he didn't have to deal with his mother because she just sits there and stares at Dad and doesn't say anything. Dad had spoken for the first time on Christmas to Ryan. Ryan kept saying "Merry Christmas" so much to the point where Dad just got sick of it and said, "Go away" and then, later on, "I wanna go home." But it's hard to understand him so well with that thing in his neck. When Rick and I went to visit, he kept trying to say something to Rick, something that looked really important. We couldn't understand a word of his moaning. He'd lift his arm (I think that was voluntary) and then his left leg would jerk (I don't think that was voluntary), and then his face would contort and he would stop trying to say whatever it was. This happened for a good 15 minutes or so until, finally, Dad gave up and said, clear as day, "Shit." That's Dad.

I went with my mother to visit Judy on Sunday--Mom wouldn't have it any other way. Judy was pretty guarded. When I left, though, she told me that I looked exactly the same. Which is exactly what Rick said. Oh, yeah, he goes by Rick now, not Rickey. It's hard to get used to that. Ryan, however, had trouble getting used to me. He thinks I look different. But then, there is only a 4 year difference between Rick and myself, but there's 7 years between Ryan and myself. Memory becomes a little more twisted the older/younger you are.

More later, though--I've got some cleaning to do. Happy New Year, by the way.

My dad

Haven't written in this thing in a while. Over a month, in fact. I haven't read Jenna's blog in just as long, if not longer, but I am certain that she has written all about my life and perhaps even some explanations as to why I've been mum online.

Over Thanksgiving, I visited my family in Massachusetts. Right before I left the office on my last day of work before turkey day, my boss pulled me into her office and said that she thought it would probably be better if I took an extra day off--come to work the next Tuesday instead of Monday. She didn't want me on the road with all the idiots driving that Sunday. I gladly agreed.

The break was busy--I felt like I was trying to please too many people, doing too much, and I wasn't getting any relaxation whatsoever. But, I told my family, I would save that Sunday after Thanksgiving to just stay at home, no matter what. And that's just what I did.

This past October, for my mother's birthday, I sent her a few things, including the movie "AI," because it was super cheap and I wasn't sure if she'd seen it yet. I hadn't. It turned out that she had, but was happy to receive it. We were watching the movie when the phone call came.

It was Tom. He'd just gotten a phone call from Ann, Judy's half sister who lives in the same town as Tom--right around the corner, in fact, on the other side of the post office. It wasn't good news. At first, I thought it was about her son, Eddy, who's about a year older than I. But as the conversation marched on, I could see my mother getting upset, and knew it wasn't Eddy.

It reminded me of the time when Ann's husband Paul died. When he died, nobody explained it to me. The following morning, the phone rang and I jumped up from my Corn Flakes to get it, but my father beat me to the phone. I remember him saying, "My brother-in-law died last night" to the person at the other end. I remember saying a mantra to myself, "Please let it be Frank, please let it be Frank...." Frank was Judy's sister Kathy's husband, and they lived in Maryland. I didn't like Frank very much. I don't know why.

Paul's children--Eddy, Ally, and Melinda--had two birds. One was named Pauly and one was named Annie, after their parents.

When I got to school that morning, none of Paul's children were at morning recess. They were really my only friends, so of course I noticed this right away. Brian, their next door neighbor who was in Eddy's grade, approached me and said, "I heard on the radio this morning that Paul died, but I'm not sure if they meant Eddy's dad or their bird."

Later that morning, while we were filling out worksheets and all was silent in the classroom, I marched up to Mrs. Baldwin with a question unrelated to classwork. At that point, everything was sort of starting to gel in my head, and I wanted answers from someone. And, as we all know, pretending to know more than you do will elicit more information from someone unsuspecting of your motives. I waited patiently for Mrs. Baldwin to come out of the storage closet and asked her as quietly as I could, "Mrs. Baldwin, did you hear about Ally's dad?" And she responded, "Yes honey, on the radio this morning. It's very sad--I was so sorry to hear about it."

And that's how I found out.

I was eight years old.

And now, 15 years later, I was sitting in the rocking chair in the livingroom, watching my mother dial Ann's number. My mother asked, "Tell me one thing, Ann. Was he drunk?" And there it was: confirmation. That's when I knew it was my dad.

For reasons that are just too lengthy to post here, I haven't spoken with the other family in over five years: my father, Judy (now legally separated from him), my brother Rickey (19) and my brother Ryan (16).

My mother wouldn't let me drive to UMASS Medical by myself. She was afraid that I would get into an accident, being upset. By the time we climbed into her car, I was a mess. When we visited him, my mother asked the nurses lots of questions. I wanted to ask something more advanced, like, "What was his BAC?" but decided against it, nervous that my mother would think I was trying to make her questions look dumb. We couldn't stay long; he was only allowed to have 5-10 minutes of visitors on the hour. Somehow, though, we managed to stay half an hour.

It turned out that he had gotten into the accident that Saturday morning, at 2:30 a.m. He crashed into a tree, so no one else was hurt. He was driving a brand new Jetta. At 2:30, a fireman was coming off duty, but when he saw the crumpled up car, he assumed that it was just the scene of the accident, and continued on his way. Two hours later, that same fireman passed by again, and this time, saw dad leaning out of the car and moaning.

In the ICU, he was heavily sedated, but the nurses said he could hear us, so talk to him. I had this speech in my head that I'd been practicing during the drive up, but when the time came, all I could tell him was that I loved him, and I wanted him to wake up and learn from this. That was part of the reason we'd lost touch--he drank too much, and it scared me. The nurses said it could go in many directions--he could die, he could live with some temporary memory loss, he could become crippled.

In the bed, he looked thinner than I remembered. Over the past couple of years, I swore that his hair would be white the next time I saw him, if I ever did. But it wasn't. It was brown, like mine. I wanted to say something funny like, "Hey dad, never seen you in a dress before," but quickly surmised that would be tactless. He had lots of cuts, and I could tell that the personnel worked really hard to clean him up. He was on a ventilator, though he could breath on his own. But they wanted to control his breathing.

I asked the nurses if his sons had been to visit, and they said they didn't think so, but that his five brothers, mother and father had come. Dad's father won't allow his sixth brother to come because the sixth brother is crazy and couldn't handle it. When my mother and I left, I wanted to tell the remaining nurse how much I appreciated all the work they were doing with him, and to thank her. But nothing came out.

As the weeks passed, I found out that his mother--my grandmother, who I've never seen that much--was making it out to everyone like he was going to die any second. So much for positive thinking. She would sit by his bedside and talk to him about how he was going to die, and that God was telling her to pull the plug. When she went into other patients' room telling them that they would die, too, the nurses decided she couldn't visit my father without somebody else present.

Then they decided that, with all of his friends--present and former--coming out of the woodwork, it was putting too much stress on him. So then he could only have family visit him. Which meant Mom couldn't go on my behalf while I was in NY. Then Judy decided that Barbara (dad's mother) shouldn't have power of attorney anymore due to her insanity/senility, so she took it away from Barbara.

Then Mom showed up on Judy's doorstep. Lots of history there, so it was a little awkward at first. In between the myriad phone calls, they updated each other on various things. She even gave Mom a picture of Ryan to give to me, and was really upset when she couldn't find a recent one of Rickey.

The past two weeks. The nurses said Dad couldn't move his legs or arms. But when his brother Paul went to visit him, Dad's leg twitched. And one time when Judy was talking to him, he opened his eyes, opened his mouth as if to speak, moved his lips, yawned, then went back into his slumber. Last week, they moved him from ICU into rehab. They still can't see much into his brain because there's still too much liquid. Every few days, they do a CAT scan to see. Judy's been looking into rehab places. But the nurses still say it can go either way.

My mother, meanwhile, talks to me like I'm the second coming. She feels that when I go to visit him, my words will be magic and he will work harder to come back to us. I'm not so sure about that, but of course I will visit him and talk to him while I am in the state.

Last night was when I saw Ryan's picture. He's so handsome, and, if anyone looks like Dad, it's him. But have you ever looked at a picture and been able to see part of someone's personality burst through? His eyes had something sinister in them. It was eerie. Last night, my sister said she saw Ryan at the convenient store next to Tom's apartment. She'd seen the same photo of him; otherwise, she might have not even noticed it was him. She and a friend walked by him and he said, "Hey, you guys got any weed you can sell us?" My sister, having decided last week to quit everything, said, "No." Then her ex-boyfriend Mike showed up and sold them some. Mike was in the grade below me in high school.

Well, my curiousity got the best of me. I had to see what Rickey looked like now. So, before my friend Joe and I hung out last night, I asked him to accompany me to Blockbuster. That's where Rickey's working now. I wasn't even sure if it was the right Blockbuster, but it was the one near where my mother used to live in my hometown, so I thought it was a good start. I didn't even expect to see him in there. It was Saturday night at 11 p.m. What 19-year-old in their right mind would be working that late on the weekend?

Rickey was. The plan was that we'd walk inside and casually look at a few videos, then glance at Rickey on the way out. Just to see. Joe and I were standing outside the entrance and I could see Rickey at the register, but only the back of his head. He had stubble and the same fair skin I remember. Then he turned around to pile a few videos, and that's when I saw his face. I was afraid that he might have gotten big, because he was always so thin, but he really did look quite normal and handsome.

I told Joe that I was afraid to go in and talk to him because, what if he resented me for not keeping in touch? I was the older sister and I felt somewhat responsible. Joe said, "If I had a sister I hadn't seen in a long time, I would hug her." But I was a wuss. I couldn't go in. I was too scared. And besides, what would Joe know? He doesn't have any siblings. I said, "Joe, I'm stalking my own brother. This is wrong." And we got into our cars and left.

My neck hurts because of all the driving I did yesterday--about 11 hours in all--so I'm going to end this now. I have to visit Dad soon, and I'm afraid that he will open his eyes and try to talk to me. What would I say?