Dad - The update in Magma

Dad was released from the hospital the beginning of this week. He’s been home and resting up. I have been a real mess lately, mainly because for the first time I found out that the second name on his emergency contacts is me. It has been difficult before when he’s been hospitalized and not to sound pessimistic but this is becoming a pattern.

Being in the trauma room and having the clinicians ask me:

“Are you ok to see this?” “I’ve seen this before, don’t worry” As they intubate him and his body convulses in response to his pneumonia and my mom is quiet, waiting behind the curtain fighting tears.

And I can’t cry, I can’t be broken when her whole life hangs from a fragile thread that appears to be about to snap.

I must be strong, I must push the tears back in the pits of my stomach and be that person that my mom always was for me.

I can’t let her down.

So I am here at work, immersed in all the things I need to break my persistent urge to call my mom and ask him how he is. Music in the background to coax me into inebriation in thoughts of lost love and the things that are padlocked away from my normal thoughts.

So this is what it means to be an adult, no one said it would hurt this much.