i’ve been watching old people around town lately. there’s lots in cambridge. canes. hunched over. sagging skin. frail bodies. and often looking down at the ground, occasionally glancing up without necessarily raising their heads. the prentice said once that the body is an awful thing. that’s always stuck with me when i ponder the old or frail.
dad had a heart attack monday. put a fright into the family. we tend to worry more about our mother’s health and take dad’s for granted. he’s alright though. they got him into the hospital quickly and they patched him up before much damage was caused. so far as we know, the main problem was in one area, which they fixed. we have a blood condition that runs in the family on my dad’s side (Factor 5 or something). we found out about it when my sis’s arm started filling up with blood cuz the veins were blocked where it normally went back to the heart. we’re thick blooded basically. go figure. grandad on my dad’s side had 7 heart attacks. last one got him at 51. but that was an age where they didn’t have swanky technology that allowed you to work on the heart through veins in the leg - like what they did to my dad; so weird.
7 heart attacks. that’ll make you think. each and every one of them. picking away at your conscience. wondering when the next one will come. when it’ll finally get ya. considering doc pittman’s recent death, i was curious to know how my dad felt during his trial. (maybe trial is the right way to view it. both for him and for us as a family.) i haven’t got much out of him about it, but what i have was hugely comforting.
we grew up in a religious community in texas, you see. religion was life. God was our ever present king. naturally, the kingdom was flawed - or rather, many in it were. there were divisions and discrepancies that earned the word hypocrisy. but amid the declensions were a few men and women of piety. and a few children too. dad was one. bias alone is not enough to explain me saying that, for i can honestly say that in 29+ years of life i have never seen my dad break the 10 commandments. the worst he could be blamed of is not washing the dishes or cleaning up the house occasionally; for not helping out ma. my sisters, fervently carrying on their geneological links with susan b anthony, have played up these faults from time to time, but they are mere faults and even they would acknowledge it. dad is one of the last of this core group of pious missionaries among which i first saw and experienced life. we all know it, as a family, and pay homage to the man, but none have been able to climb into the patriarch’s shoes as of yet. we resemble more the rest of those on the mission: mixed intentions, mixed strengths, mixed ambitions, but if push comes to public shove, a base of integrity we owe to our upbringing - dad, mom and mission included.
dad has always been unwavering. constant. at peace. through trial and tribulation: peace. it is the rarest of qualities. doc pittman didn’t seem to have it. it was probably his unrest - his “miserableness”, as my sis put it - that led him to support my sis and me so much. at least this seems reasonable to suggest. let not hearing of the man who is “complex” or “dynamic” confuse you into seeing past his inward unrest, an inward storm of instability as he struggles to find peace in this crazy world. it is often the battle within the conscience that creates the dynamism. it is often those that struggle the most that are considered so brilliant. (by chance, i’m listening to “oh my sweet carolina” right now on shuffle. what more evidence do i need than the millions of songs written about a troubled life and the search for home. ryan adams’ early music is defined by this character and now that he’s finding a settled base and a clean life play close attention to those who decry that trend in his recent music as a shame, as a lose of earlier brilliance. wretched souls.)
so to the latest trial, the trial of seeing the end. dad explained how he had been working on a post for the recent religious blog he’s started. after years - almost a decade by my calculations - he’s been trying to come up with some teachings on the laodicean church, the last of the 7 church ages prophesied in revelation, but to no avail. lately, he’d finally been gathering some thoughts, coming up with some points. so of his trip to the hospital he merely recounted thinking “Lord, dont take me now. i’ve got more to do.” he told me this with a bit of a chuckle.
he gave us our sense of humor too. go figure.
**EDIT** this all seems a bit hagiographic. sorry about that. in part it would be, from a son who’s dad just had a heart attack. but i stand by it as the voicing of thoughts built up over years of normalcy, only voiced due to the current occasion, not crafted originally therein. (those last two phrases by the way, totally early modern english prose. wup?)
2 years ago