Descent

My father drummed darkness
Through the underbrush
Until lightning struck

I take after him

Clouds crowd the sky
Around me as I run
Downhill on a high–
I am my motherís son
Born long ago
In the stormís eye

Samuel Menashe

I talked to my sister yesterday. The conversation’s theme the same as it has been for weeks – what to do with our parents? However, this time we ended with a tidy plan.

I said, “Letís keep it a secret for now.”

Fifteen minutes later my brother, Brian, called. He told me his flight back from Evansville was flawless. “Greased””is the word he used. I told him it was payback given how difficult his visit had been. He continued, “But that’s not the real reason I called. Joan told me you had a secret plan… .”

**********
Diane and I danced in the kitchen last night while we prepared dinner. We listened to Willie Nelson sing from his greatest hits album – songs like Remember Me and Georgia on my Mind.

“If only the music were better,” Diane whispered in my ear.

“I love this music.”

“I know. Iím afraid weíre going to end up in the South listening to Country and Western.”

“And Old Time Radio.”

**********
Matt brought his tux home last night for his upcoming prom on the 28th. He has been pretty quiet about the event, but not Diane. Holy cow. Youída thought it was her prom. “When are you getting picked up in the limo? When can we take pictures? Will other parents be there? What are you doing afterwards? Are you staying out all night? When does the tux have to be returned.”

*********
Peter leaves Evansville this morning for an almost two week conference in San Fransico.

The books from the burro train arrived today at the Miller black hole depository. Normally, this could be found written inside ever cover, but would you lookey here.——->

What could this mean?

Flo up and about on her walker.

Brian has joined Peter in Evansville. He called me yesterday while struggling to find the parents’ house on Bellemeade. I was outside cutting the grass. I wouldíve told him getting lost is part of the arrival ritual. I usually drive down route 41, past their street, then I get trapped in traffic where I’m forced onto the bridge over the muddy Ohio River. Once on the Kentucky side, Iíll wander in the swampy area behind the race track until some homeless guy guides me back to the right state. Thatís after Iíve traded a dollar for a swig of his Thunderbird. It might be a good thing Brian did not reach me.

Did I tell you Diane bought her new car with zero input from me? She researched it, had dealers bidding against one another, and sealed the deal without any help. Not that she needs help, I mean, she might have liked to have had help… .

A hundred pages into The Closers and not a glimpse of the killer.

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Peter in red, Emma and Patti.

The friendly folks at the local library where Patti worked sewed her this bed-sized quilt. Pictured is the top left most square. For a look at the whole quilt, minus the yellow and polka-dot border, click right here .

We clogged the Costco check out line today with three hundred dollars worth of essentials. In addition to the fifty-five gallon drum of olive oil, the too-heavy-to pickup box of soy milk, the left flank of Mt Washington turned into toilet paper and paper towels, we (okay, I) bought the new Michael Connelly book.

Priced at a buck or two above what the paperback version will sell for, I couldn’t resist. The young lad helping box our stuff said to Diane ( I was off using the facilities), “I’ve read only one of these, but I liked it. The main character’s name is Harry, but doesn’t he have a longer name?” Diane, not a fan or even a reader of the Harry Bosch series replied, “Hieronymus.”

Adam and rakkity, set your Barcoloungers to “easy reading.” I should be finished by next weekend.

I guess everyone’s kid will eventually end up in Spain.

FOR:MILLER/MATTHEW C

SERVICE DATE FROM TO DEPART ARRIVE

AIR FRANCE 22JUN BOSTON MA PARIS 535P 620A
AF 337 WEDNESDAY LOGAN INTL CHARLES DE GAU 23JUN
V ECONOMY AIRCRAFT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A340-300
SEAT 45B CONFIRMED

AIR FRANCE 23JUN PARIS BARCELONA 745A 930A
AF 1148 THURSDAY CHARLES DE GAU
V ECONOMY AIRCRAFT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A320-100/200

To paraphrase Matthew: “The blog is one happy place to be these days. Chest pains, dead bodies, depressing poems, and more dead people. Can’t you ligthen up?”

Does it get any cheerier than these photos taken at dinner last night? Though it looks like a comic book illustation viewed with 3-D glasses, be sure to click on the last link.

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Noland’s brother,Noland, and friends.

I stopped by New England Life Care, a nursing home/rehab facility, not unlike Rivercrest, to see my buddy, Noland. This was my third visit. His bed was made, his chair, brought from home, empty. I had a present for him.

“I’m looking for Noland. Is he is at rehab?”

The nurse looked at me and hesitated.

“No he’s not. Who are you? Are you close to him, are you family?”

“I’m close family.”

“Let me look to see if you are on his list.”

“Okay, I’m not on the list. But… .”

“He’s in the hospital.”

I called Emerson to see if he had a room. He did not. I visited with Flo, shopped for dinner and then called his wife, Shirley. She answered, distantly.

“What’s up Shirley?”

“Noland just died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We were in the emergency room for most of the day. He was going to be transferred to Critical Care. I went home for a moment and Dr. Green called… .”

Dr. Herson walked back to where I was sitting and opened his textbook to a page of black and used-to-be-white graphs. He angled his straight edge so that it would intersect my age with my treadmill results.

“See, this shows that you are in good shape for your age, even if not for you.”

“I’ve exercised all my life, but I’ve been fallow the last few months. And my diet – it’s the worst it has ever been.”

“But your chest pains are not due to any blockage. That’s what this stress test showed, and you were able to tolerate level four, which is good for your age.”

The treadmill is programed to respond to data input. It increases in speed and in elevation depending on heart rate. As I stepped along, Dr. Herson gabbed. I’d ask him a question and he’d drift into long, convoluted answers, as if I had an inkling of what he was talking about. The faster the treadmill spun, the longer the answers and the less sense they made.

While he scribbled pictures of my arteries with little mounds of plaque, I concentrated on not letting go of the handrails and appearing to have an easy walk-in-the-park. I’d dreaded this test, not only for what it might show inside my arteries, but for what it would reveal to the casual observer. A near bedridden slug.

“You know, that textbook looks like something I used in college.”

“Ah yes. It has sentimental value.”

“Sentimental value? But what about new information? I mean, think of what you learned in medical school that is worthless today?”

“These values don’t change. This book was published in 1973 and it would take a hundred thousand years of human evolution to change these values.”

It’s funny how this purported stress test really doesn’t show stress, which is what I had hoped to be the cause of my chest pains. When I first sat down, I told Dr. Herson as much, because I knew my symptoms veered from classic textbook descriptions. Still, elephants straying from the Serengeti to my sternum are hard to ignore.

“You should do something to lower your cholesterol levels, but you know, some people have high serum levels, but don’t deposit in on their arteries. Still, your LDL is too high.”

I could see the wrap-up coming in his eyes, but I had another topic to discuss.

“I’ve got one more thing.”

He paused. I assumed he was busy, so I tried to condense as best as possible , my little story. It came out in chunks.

“I worked here twenty-five years ago as a respiratory therapist. There was a resuscitation in the CCU which we worked together on. It was a man in his forties. He was admitted and right away he arrested. I’d seen him sitting up, talking to his wife and son, and as we worked on him, his son, who had been ushered out of the room, asked if he could come back in. You said, ‘Yes.’ ”

“I do remember that, but the details are vague. You know, that’s what they are recommending these days, that family members participate more. It really depends on the age. Teenagers, I’d still say no to.”

“You were ahead of your time. I’d been part of two hundred or so resuscitations by then, and that was a first. No physician had ever let a family member watch. But, here was his son, barely twenty years old, whispering in his father’s ear, begging him to come back.

After it was over I complimented you for letting him into the room, and you said, ‘How could I say no?’ I was glad you didn’t say no, because I thought afterwards that his son would have no if-only’s. He came in and he did everything he could to bring his father back.”

I’d just gotten home from work. I was chillin’ in front of my computer, before my shower, before Diane arrived back from wherever she was, and before our trip to the bookstore, Borders. Diane’s Lebanese born car salesman had convinced her to buy language tapes to improve her French (doesn’t that sound like something that would happened to me, not her?) and I needed a few more hours of radio mystery.

Let me add – this had already been one of those weeks. For both of us

Ringy dingy.

“Is this the Florence Canning household?”

“Close enough.”

“Then you are… ?”

“Her son-in-law.”

“This is Kim from Dr. Paparallo’s office. We have the report on today’s CAT scan. Florence has a fractured hip. She needs to be taken to the emergency room at Emerson.”

“Why? What will they do there? We did that last Saturday after her fall on Friday.”

“That’s what the doctor wants.”

“She has some mobility, she is in rehab… “

“But you have to take her to the emergency room.”

“I don’t mean to be argumentative, but why not call an orthopedic surgeon to see her?”

“Dr Paparallo wants you to take her to Emerson. She has a non-displaced fracture of the greater trochanter and it’s severe enough that she should be seen in the emergency room.”

“But then what? We’ve been through this before. They looked at her and sent her home. Now that they have more information, what will they do?”

“She may need surgery. I don’t know.”

Kim won. I couldn’t argue anymore. I knew that Diane, after yet another week of medical calls and today’s CAT scan on her supposed day off, might just complete her core meltdown, which would be pleasant to watch compared to how I knew Flo would react.

“Okay. We have some things to do (I had to find Diane), but we ought to be there within the hour.”

“I’ll call and tell Emerson you are coming.”

Maybe you’d like to call and tell my wife.

The emergency room bustled with business, but Flo didn’t have to wait long to see Dr. Sam Sockwell. Maybe because, in my own fit of pique, I wheeled her through the door marked “Ambulance Entrance Only,” and not the one further away, “Emergency Room Patients.” Wheeled is a misnomer. I gave her a shove and she glided through both automatic doors, and arrived without escort at the front desk, behind which all the doctors and nurses, not the admitting staff, buzzed. Even stressed out Diane, who had to whip her head around to find her mother, laughed.

Dr. Sockwell is tall and thin and his light brown hair has just a touch of gray at the temples. He is direct, very polite and though he has no accent, you know he is not native born. He told us that Flo’s fracture was similar to her right hip fracture of two months ago, and we had to decide if she would get proper care back at good old Concord Park. If Flo were at risk of falling, she would have to be admitted to Emerson, and then shipped back to Rivercrest or another rehab facility.

“Can you be careful?” Each time Dr. Sockwell turned from one of us to talk to Flo, he’d bend down and make real good eye contact. Yes, he raised his voice some, but not a lot.

“Oh yes.”Flo answered. I knew how much Flo wanted to go back to her place and I knew she was going to serve a whole platter of yes’s. I bit my tongue. We all wanted her back at “the hole.”

“Are there people at Concord Park to take care of you?”

“Oh yes.”

“The hole” had morphed into God’s gift to the elderly.

“Will you ask for help?”

“Yes. I will. They told me to pull that thing (her call chain) whenever I needed to, but I thought it was just for emergencies. They said, ‘Pull it anytime.’ I said, ‘You mean, even at 2 AM ?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ “

Diane, eager to make sure Dr. Sockwell knew who he was dealing with, interrupted Mrs. I’ll-Be-A-Perfect-Angel.

“Last night my mother used the commode, but she couldn’t stand it sitting at her beside, so she got up and emptied it.”

Dr. Sockwell, who had been laughing at Flo’s answers before this, straightened up, turned away and muttered, “She’s a character.”

Flo said, “Who’s a character?”

Dr. Sockwell looked down and said, “You are.”

Polite, respectful, raised in that generation of proper names, Flo held out her hand as though closing an important business deal, and I swear, in an octave lower than her normal voice, said, “Okay, Sam.”

They shook hands and Sam signed her discharge papers.