(For my paid subscribers, I’m sorry I missed your paid post last week. I was planning on doing it but see below. I’ll get you guys a makeup post when I can.
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Life was normal-ish as of this past Thursday. Power was out at the house due to a Wednesday night storm, but I had a motel room booked and was planning on going to a nearby restaurant that I really liked. I had my route to work planned out for Friday and I was planning to take it easy for a night, watch some History Channel with my feet up and get to bed early.
I had a meeting at work at 2:00. Around 1:30ish I wandered off for a second to take care of some things that I needed to handle before the meeting. While I was away from my desk, my phone rang. It was my sister. My step-father (who my mother has been married to for over twenty years) had had an aortic dissection. He was in a hospital that was only an hour and a half away (they live four hours away), but they couldn’t handle kind of surgery he needed. The University of Michigan Hospital (one of the worlds finest) wouldn’t take him. Nowhere else would either until an operating room opened up. Then they were going to life-flight him to Beaumont Royal (five minutes away and also a damn fine hospital and world’s fourth largest last I heard.) but then we got a rain squall and they couldn’t fly him down because of the weather so they had to drive him down in an ambulance.
And then I had to go meet with the client because one does not miss meetings with clients on five minutes notice. I accomplished precisely nothing with my presence and the I was out of the building calling my daughters Riley (18) and Cecilia (13) on my way to check in to the motel before going to a hospital, only I got ahead of myself a second ago and I didn’t know which hospital yet, so I couldn’t even figure out where I needed to be. I mean, my sister would have told me if she had a but she didn’t.
If you know anything about aortic dissections (and I pray that you don’t, unless you’re a cardiologist) seventy-five percent of the people who have them don’t survive the first twenty-four hours. The only way to save the person’s life is through surgery, only Mike has had so many open hearts already that they couldn’t do the surgery. Surgery would kill him. Bonus points though: He’s a stubborn old cuss. He’s still here but there’s no saving him. My mom signed the paperwork to put him in hospice on Saturday (in the presence and with the approval of her kids) and they moved him to the hospice floor yesterday. It has not been one of the better weekends of my life.
Don’t get me wrong. The hospital staff is great. What I’ve got to rely on right now though, is family. What they’ve got to rely on right now is me and each other. I was the one who stayed Saturday night at the hospital. My sister was the one who went home and cooked for the entire family yesterday. My stepsister Melissa is a nurse and she’s the one doing a lot of the communication with the hospital. She’s been great. My mom is just trying to keep up with everything and make the decisions she needs to make. My nephew brought his wife and their daughter out Friday to see great-grandpa. I’m not sure if they meant to make everyone feel a little better by doing so or not but that’s what happened. I’ll take it. I’m not going to mention all of the other family that’s made it out because I’d probably forget somebody but there have been an absolute ton of people in Mike’s room comforting him as well as each other.
My girls made a trip out to see their grandpa on Friday. It was great to see the girls and honestly I needed that. We went to the Starbucks at the hospital for awhile (Mike’s hospital room was getting a bit claustrophobic) and talked about the kids and what they’ve got going on. (For the record, my girls are amazing.) I needed that brief interlude a lot worse than I needed a latte, but whatever it takes to get through, right?
We’re trying to keep Mike busy mentally. It’s not easy and he’s been on medicine for anxiety pretty much all weekend after a lifetime of not taking it. I’m not poking fun. I’ve been on psych meds. I’m mentioning it to show how hard this is hitting him. But we, as a family, are doing what we can to take his mind off things and make sure he isn’t in any pain. Given the fact that his kidneys have failed and he won’t take dialysis, I’m not sure how much we can do for how long, but we’ll do what we can.
Yes, I do have a point in bringing up all of this and it’s not just that writing is good therapy. The point is this:
There has been a movement in this country to redefine the word “family.” There is a portion of the population who would decry this post and anything else supporting “family values” as being homophobic at the very least and transphobic probably. I’m here to say differently though and, with every bit of respect that I feel for those people and that attitude, they can kiss my ass.
There have been people that have helped me when I needed it that I was not related to. Some of them helped me a lot. There are people to whom I am not related that I have done my best for in the hopes that it helped them as well. I have reason to believe it did, but I will not speak for them.
Still and all, the ties of blood and marriage are, and always have been, the strongest and longest lasting, at least in families that don’t end in divorce. The US, hell the entire Western world, has lost sight of this basic fact. Our ancestors got this. There is a reason that alliances were sealed with marriages. Even if the parents were loyal to their side of the family, the kids were related to both and would support both sides.
I don’t know how we got away from the basic fact that family is the most important thing, but that’s a realization we need to pass on to each other and to our kids. Every successful society has the family as its basic unit. It may be the nuclear family. It may be the extended family. But when the family breaks down, society breaks down.
It’s well past time that we brought the family back to the center of American life. It’s well past the point that we join with the people that God gave us as our own and work toward something together. It’s well past time that we set differences aside with those we’re related to and come together just to be together and to hell with those who would tell us that we shouldn’t accept each other over reasons that have nothing to do with family. I’ve seen it happen and it’s bullshit.
Seriously, take five minutes of your day today and call someone from your bloodline. Mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparents whatever. Stop surfing the web and pick up the phone. Yes, I am talking to you. Personally. Pick up the phone. Set up a time to talk over coffee or something if you’re feeling adventurous. Renew the ancient ties of kinship and loyalty and be with those who matter. Tomorrow isn’t promised.
As for me my laundry should be done soon and then I can head back up to the hospital in a shirt that doesn’t stink. Ya’ll take care.
Absolutely. That's why it's one of the cornerstones of a strong foundation. Thank you for sharing this with us.