Life and Death

This post was inspired by the The Red Dress Club memoir writing prompt. The one below is based upon the prompt as opposed to this one. For those who don’t like clicking, the prompt was imagine that after you have died your daughter/son will be given the gift of seeing a single five-minute period of your life through your eyes, feeling and experiencing those moments as you did when they occurred. What five minutes would you have him/her see? Tell us about them in the finest detail.

I find people to be fascinating. They are endlessly amusing creatures who like to think that the things that they do are based upon logic and reason, yet they aren’t. They rarely do anything that isn’t arbitrary in nature. We don’t like to admit these things. We don’t like stare at our own foibles or accept our own mortality.

It is late afternoon and I am seated on an American Airlines airplane waiting to fly back to Los Angeles. The seat belt sign is on and the flight attendants are preparing for takeoff.

My toe is tapping and my knuckles are turning white from gripping the seat. For a moment I wonder if I can crush the armrest with nothing but my fingertips. I am trying hard to think about anything and everything other than my father.

He lies unconscious in a hospital bed some 30 miles away from the airport. He is being kept alive by machines and medication. The flight home will take almost six hours and it is possible that he will die while I am in the air.

A short time earlier I sat next to his bed and spoke softly to him. In the midst of the beeps, clicks, clacks and whirling noises made by the machines that keep him alive I told him about his grandson and reminded him that his daughter-in-law is pregnant

Asked him to wake up for me, begged him to open his eyes and acknowledge me. Asked him not to die because I needed him. Told him that I want him to celebrate my 35th birthday with me and squeezed his hand, but he didn’t squeeze it back.

The captain makes a few announcements but I can barely focus. I don’t know what to do. I am not panicking because dad wouldn’t panic and so I won’t. But he is unconscious and I can’t do anything to help save his life- not from 3,000 miles away.

I close my eyes and think of my son. He is almost 3.5 and I can’t believe that there is a chance that my father will die before they really get to know each other. I can’t believe that he might not get to meet the baby who is yet to come.

Dad is a huge presence in my life and always has been. I feel guilty leaving him. I feel guilty leaving mom there. I hadn’t realized until this moment that he was/is human.

But I can’t stay. I am a father and I learned from my dad that I have to take care of my family. My grandparents don’t know how serious this is. I didn’t tell them that I wasn’t sure if he would survive long enough for me to fly out and now I have to do it all over again.

I remember telling dad and grandpa about my uncle dying. I remember the pain in my father’s eyes and how I made grandpa cry. I told him that his youngest son was dead. Am I going to be forced to tell him about his oldest too.

The plane pulls away from the gate and begins to taxi towards the runway. For a moment I consider jumping out of my seat and demanding that they let me go. I am sitting close to and emergency exit. I calculate the distance between the door and my seat, figure that I can get there fast enough to open it and jump.

It is crazy and I know it. But my father might die. There is a voice telling me that I am betraying him by not being by his side.

He wouldn’t have left me. That is not how our family works. I am the only son. I know him differently than my sisters. My grandfather wouldn’t leave me either. I can see him crying, can hear grandma say no. The moment haunts me. It is one of a few that stick with me.

The engines roar and as the plane gains speed I am pressed back into my seat. Now all I can do is wait and make silent promises to the future.

This post was inspired by the The Red Dress Club memoir writing prompt. Technically I have to write one based upon the prompt they gave. Stay tuned.

You don’t expect bad news to come on a day with endless blue skies and convertibles filled with beautiful women. The kind of news that I got that day should have accompanied by thunder and lightning. One should feel as if war is raging on the mountaintops.

There should be an epic battle raging between Zeus and Hades. It should feel like the end of days is at hand Armageddon.

But the day that we heard about D wasn’t like that. It wasn’t even close. It was exactly as I first described, beautiful. It was a picture perfect day.

I should have been outside. I should have been roller blading or hanging out at the beach. I should have been staring at hard bodies in bikinis or washing my car. Any and all of those things would have been appropriate and far better than what I was doing.

You are not supposed to make the calls that I made that day. Not at 29. Friends don’t die of terminal illness not at 29. You don’t spend the summer watching your friend waste away. At 29 you don’t watch the disintegration of a beautiful mind, except I did.

D was one my closest friends and in many ways more like a brother. He was a guardian of secrets and a trusted companion. He was a pilot and a scientist. He was a son and a brother. He was deeply in love with his girlfriend and making plans for a future that he would never have.

Now he is a memory that many of us share.

It was around 7 AM or so when my telephone rang. I answered it on the second ring knowing that it was bad news. The voice on the other line belonged to his little brother and though it didn’t break I could hear the anguish hiding behind his words.

There was no sugar coating it. No description of him passing away nor attempt to explain it and I didn’t offer one either. It seemed hollow, fake and inauthentic for me to tell him that his brother was taken or that G-d had some special purpose for him.

He asked me to make some calls and I said yes. Thirteen years later I still remember the feeling of horror and dread that morning. I felt like the Angel of Death.

It was unreal. I’ll never forget how Heather screamed no in the phone and began sobbing. Thirteen years later the echo of her screams lives in my memory. Thirteen years later I remember how an hour before the funeral we gathered in my condo and drank a toast to D.

We stood there in my living room silently trying to make sense of the senseless. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and tried to center myself. I pictured a moment in time, D and I were in his plane flying over Los Angeles.

We’re 23 and talking about girls and life. I look out the windshield at endless blue skies and he asks me if I remember double dating in Santa Barbara. I say of course and he asks if I remember someone walking in on my girlfriend and I. I nod my head and tell him that whomever that was killed the moment. He starts laughing and he tells me that he knows that wasn’t true.

He explains that girls talk and tells me that Debbie talked to Karen about that time. A big smirk crosses my face and I tell D that I hoped he learned something. He says “screw you” and we keep flying into the blue.

I am covered in sweat now. We’re at D’s funeral and we’re burying him. We who loved him are taking care of this because we can’t stand to let some stranger do it.

The sound of dirt falling on his coffin is intermingled with loud sobs that come from all around me. Sweat drips into my eyes blurring my vision and I stop shoveling. I look up and make eye contact with D’s mother.

Tears stream down her face and I look up in time to see a small plane fly overhead.