From the hospital

It's been an eternity since I blogged...but today seems a good time to start again. It's January, after all, and isn't that when we're supposed to start doing all the things we know we really should be doing? Anyway, here I am, spending time with my Dad in the hospital as he recovers from hip replacement surgery. This is day 2 of the recovery, and so far it's just a lot of sitting, pain management, and slow movements. He's been able to walk down the hallway about fifty feet or so at a time, using a walker, and very small steps. It's amazing that just the other day, his leg wasn't even attached.

I keep thinking about something a friend told me a few years back when I was wrestling with the prospect of accompanying my Grandma back to her old place in Arizona after Grandpa died. She had spent the summer with us in NY, and had to go home for the first time alone, and deal with all kinds of mail. A whole bin full of sympathy cards, bills, notifications about forms that needed to be filed to facilitate the transfer of Grandpa's assets into her name...just life stuff. I counted about 70 greeting cards, if I remember correctly...and all we could do was open a few at a time, read the handwritten sentiments, and cry a for a while. He was so loved by so many people.

Back to what my friend said. As I was deciding whether or not I was up for the trip, for the pain of being here to see my Grandma try to figure out how to reenter her life without him, I was bemoaning the dilemma with someone who was kind enough to listen, and wise enough to talk some sense into me. He told me this was real life, and that I needed to walk through it. He told me that when his father was dying, and he was having to help him do all kinds of things a son should never have to help his father do, he spent every moment trying to avoid it...trying to do anything but be in that horrible moment. Looking back, he said, he would not trade any of it. Moments of the gritty reality of life aren't common for most of us...we live relatively untremulous lives. But this, he said, this time with my grandmother would never come again. I had to go.

So I did, and I'm glad. It hurts to remember how difficult that week was, and Steve can attest to the phone calls I made to him daily during which I wept, and wished I could be anywhere but there. It was horrible, but it was real. My friend was right. I would have regretted it for the rest of my life if I hadn't been there with my Grandmother.

And this, I think, although substantially less invasive to my life (I haven't just lost my Grandfather) is another "real life" moment. My Dad just had major surgery, a piece of his body cut out and replaced with metal and plastic, and another several months of slow progressing recovery to look forward to. All of us - the whole family - have been here, in and out, assuring ourselves that he's going to be okay. And he is. But it still feels like we have to keep checking.

I realized today that I don't care about my job. I care about this. About being there for my family, about having this as a reason to step out of the busyness of life, the mess we create for ourselves with appointments and deadlines, and just be here with the people we love until they fall asleep with us watching.