My father's heart surgery

 

My housemates met me as I came through Boston Logan Airport after my European holiday. "You need to go to Maine," they said. My father had had a heart attack.

I found him in bed and he told me he needed bypass surgery. He also told me he'd thrown a priest out of his room, but was impressed with the Salvation Army officer.

Neither my beloved stepmom or myself could talk him out of going back to Florida for the operation.

Uncle Pat and Aunt Alma, who had moved to Florida the week before, flanked us throughout. 

As typical of our family, we were able to relieve the tension with a trip to the hotel pool and good meals. Uncle Pat, a meat and potatoes man and ex-FBI, teased me about my love of avocados.

Minutes while waiting for my dad to come out of surgery, were hours long, but finally Dr. Patel appeared. "Let's find a room, where we can talk." The four of us followed him to filled room after filled room.

I could stand it no longer and I blurted out, "Is he alive?" 

"Yes," he said finding a corner to brief us. "You can see him now."

We were ushered into the recovery room. My Dad lay on a gurney, looking smaller and whiter than I ever remembered. They whipped off his sheet leaving the man whom I adored, stark naked. "I now see from whence I came," I said.

My Dad lived another four years and we shared more good memories. I wrote Dr. Patel to thank him for saving my father. 

Knowing my father wasn't immortal made each of those new moments together special in the same way sharing those awful moments with my stepmom, aunt and uncle as we waited for my father to have his heart redesigned, were special.

All of them are gone now but never from my heart.