What I want to do now is go back. And yes, I mean I want to go way back. I want to go back to a time when I was young. I was sick but I was too young to understand why or what it meant to have gastroenteritis. I was too young to understand big words like this, or adult words that doctors use. I was far too young to understand why I was in and out of the hospital.
I didn’t know much about these things.
I only knew that I was sick and at the time, it seemed as if nothing was going to help me feel better.
I can remember my bed in the hospital was next to the window. I was several stories above the ground level.
I remember this clearly.
I recall looking out the window while lying in a hospital bed. The view overlooked a park, and everything was so bright and green.
The sky was the kind of blue which only happens in the springtime, and after the ground thawed and the cold air had given way to the warmth of an upcoming summer.
My arms were poked with needles and tied to bags which hung on a wired rack and fed me the fluids I needed to supposedly get well. The pain from the needles was excruciating.
I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to go home. I was thinking about how beautiful the outdoors looked yet, I was a kid with a defeated soul and sad because what kind of kid should have to be held indoors when the day is so beautiful?
I don’t remember much. However, I know this was tough on my Mother and Father. I don’t know if there were other challenges or if they were afraid of something grimmer than what I was told. All I knew is that I was sick.
I know that I went through tests, and I was poked and prodded. I can remember trying to fall asleep, and just as I was able to rest, like clockwork, a nurse came in to check my I.V. and wake me up to check my vitals. Hence, there was no rest.
I will leave this here as an entry of love and warmth. I know that my memories of this time are hazy, at best, and there was an overwhelming feeling inside of me which suggested that I was a burden because I was so sick and everyone around me had to take care of me.
Other kids my age was not so sick.
So why me?
What did I do wrong?
Did I upset someone?
Was God punishing me?
And if so, then why?
I thought I was at least somewhat of a good boy. I never believed I was great at much, but I never thought that I was so bad or did anything so wrong that I deserved to be sick or punished.
Then again, I was young and a very small boy. Therefore, I thought and believed as very young and small boys thought.
I have a memory. . .
And I have spoken about this before. I have a memory after the hospital. I was home and still not well. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t rest. I couldn’t keep food down which meant that I might have to go back to the hospital to keep me from being dehydrated.
I had to make it through the night without throwing up.
Or else, it was back to the hospital.
My Father was a working man. He worked hard. My Father was up before the sun and came home after the sun went down. He worked with his hands, and he came from a hard life and came from a tough background with a hard upbringing and a hard Father, who was my Grandfather, and somewhat unforgiving of laziness.
My Father, who I honored and addressed warmly and loyally as Pop, is also the same man, who I refer to as The Old Man in my journals.
He was my very first hero. He was the strongest man in the world and yes, of course, my Old Man could beat up your Old Man, hands down, and with no questions asked.
He could fix anything. He could do anything. And me, I would sit in awe of him, amazed and impressed, and wishing or hoping that perhaps someday, I could be as big or as strong, or if anything; perhaps I could be as capable as him. If so, then I could say that yes, I have lived a successful life.
I remember Mom was trying to calm me down. But there was no calming down. I was sick and uncomfortable and petrified of going back to the hospital. I didn’t want to go back.
I was tired of being poked with more needles or being made to undergo more tests. I just had to make it through the night.
My Father worked as a licensed steamfitter, which means most of his work was plumbing and heating.
The Old Man often smelled from the oil burners that he worked on. He wore work boots and jeans with a flannel shirt, and his hands were often stained by the soot and the oil and the work he’d do throughout the day.
He was a man’s man, my Father.
He ate everything on his plate. He drank beer when it was hot outside and blackberry brandy when it was cold.
I recall when The Old Man came home. Mom was crying to him because she was afraid that I would have to go back to the hospital. She couldn’t calm me down and I couldn’t feel better.
“Let me go upstairs and see him,” said my Father.
I remember the sound of The Old Man’s footsteps as he walked up stairs to my bedroom.
Our house was modest and small. There were three bedrooms, two of which were upstairs and one of them was mine. The other bedroom belonged to Mom and The Old Man and the bedroom downstairs belonged to my brother, Dave. But that’s a story for another day.
I remember the sound of The Old Man opening my bedroom door. I remember my pajama shirt was riding up the side of my body and exposing my ribcage.
The Old Man noticed this. He told me how I was so skinny that he could use my ribs like a piano … and he pressed gently, as if to find the right key. Then he sang a song for me.
Tea for two, and two for tea.
Me for you. And you for me.
That’s the song he sang to me.
I know this was a real song and I know this song was before my time. And I know that perhaps The Old Man wasn’t the best of singers or piano players, but somehow, I was able to relax at a time when there was no relaxing. I felt comfortable at a time when there was no comfort.
I never forgot this . . .
In fact, it was a late night on December 28, 1989. The Old Man was delirious in the coronary care unit. He couldn’t calm down and he couldn’t find peace. He was still alive, but barely.
He just had to make it through the night and they said they could take him to another hospital.
He just had to make it through the night.
But The Old Man couldn’t rest or get comfortable
And me, well . . .
The one thing I know is I was raised to be a man who repays what I owe.
So, I knelt at The Old Man’s bedside and I tapped the side of his ribs, as if to prepare to find the right key.
Then I sang, Tea for two, and two for tea.
Me for you. And you for me.
I sang it the same way my Father sang for me when I was uncomfortable.
And just like that, The Old Man went quiet.
I noticed a tear in his eye — and the hour changed and so did the day to December 29, 1989, which is the day when my Father passed.
I was thinking about the shows we used to watch, like All In The Family, or the other sitcoms of my youth. I was thinking about the times when we sat together, like a family.
So –
What now?
Well, if you know anything about me, and by now, I hope that you do—but if you don’t and if there is any question, I can say that I write this to you with a tear in my eye.
I am thinking about the beauty of the family unit and the years I missed and the times I wish I could relive, or redo, exactly as they were—unchanged.
There’s no more fighting and no more reasons to argue now.
I have seen what senselessness comes from useless fights.
There’s no more of that now.
There is only the future ahead and the realization that our time is finite. And I don’t want to waste another moment.
However, our memories are undying, and like the love in my heart—these are the things that live on in our hearts, and if it is up to me, people like us and the memories we create will never die.
No, these are the things we live behind or otherwise, this is how we live on
forever~
The Written Addiction 