Radioactive

Christmas 1972

On The Radio: Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel
In My Bloodstream: Blood - That Was It

The ambulance delivered me to the Emergency Wing at Queensway Hospital.  I was having a heart attack.  I knew it.  I remembered my dad.

My dad had a series of heart attacks over a period of three weeks in the summer of 1972.  I was, by then, working in Toronto for CIL as a sales rep for industrial chemicals.  Every other day after work, I would drive the ninety miles north to visit him in the hospital. I left work early on Fridays, so that I might spend a little extra time with him and make sure Mom was coping.

My boss at that time was Don Young, a great manager and friend.  Proof positive that you can be both and achieve satisfaction and success in all facets of your life.  Don was a mentor and the best role model a young man could wish for.  He was the one telling me not to worry about my job.  Just look after my family.

On my August 24th visit, I drove up the driveway to our house.  I wanted to check on Mom before going to town to see Dad, who had been hospitalized for almost a month.  At the kitchen window, watching for me, was my father.  He was home.  At that point in my life, I had never felt so much joy.     He was back.  We hugged, laughed and cried.  I could not believe he was home.  He took in a short, deep breath.

Ten minutes later, I drove him back to the hospital.  The pain was back.  Another massive attack.

My dad was the victim of a bad diet and years of constantly puffing on a cigarette.  He really had no other bad habits.  As I have often said, jokingly, keep your bad habits to a minimum, but be really good at them.  But I didn't expect someone to die for theirs.

He seldom had a drink.  He loved to work.  If he wasn't at his regular job, he was building or fixing something around the house.  He was an accomplished musician who played piano at dances in and around Orillia, where we had moved in 1951.  He could play any song after hearing it just once.  He loved to play his piano.  It was his absolute passion.

His favorite song to play around that time was “Bridge Over Troubled Water”.   I’m guessing it meant something to him.  I never knew what, specifically, he liked about the song, but I always thought the lyrics overshadowed the melody, unusual for him.  No doubt though, that his too short life as a husband, father, adventurer, musician and laborer had provided him more than his share  of tough days. He spent all those years trying to make a life with his own little family,  so far away from the place he was born.  I don’t remember him ever complaining.  Ever.  About anything.

Back in hospital I sat once again at my Dad’s bedside.  He was on a machine to keep him alive.  Electronic pulses doing the work of a broken-down heart.  He was almost too weak to stay awake.  The doctor told me his situation was grave.  In fact, he demonstrated that exactly by turning off his machine.  Dad became lifeless.  The doctor said that he could not talk to Mom about literally pulling the plug, but asked for my opinion.  I could not deal with that choice - at that time.  I just could not imagine life without him.  My lack of decision was all about me and not about Dad.

Dad wanted to tell me something -  something  important - I could see his sad eyes.  I was waiting for the last words of a man I loved and admired so much.

Anticipation.  I was on the verge of tears. I felt remorse for times that I didn’t  treat him as well as he deserved.  I wanted to have him forever.  My heart pounded  and I couldn’t swallow.  I moved to the side of his bed and looked into his wet, tired eyes, knowing this could be the end.

Finally.   He said, “I wish I could have just one more cigarette”.

Son of a bitch.  Just great!  This is not how I imagined our last talk would go.  This was not the script I would have written.  Where were the warm words of affection, the “Son, look after your Mom”, his guidelines for life, his secret clue to a lost treasure.  No.  What he left me with was a hatred of smoking, especially for those I love.  And I certainly don’t want to hear their last words to be like Dad’s.  Good grief.  My last lesson from  him was that addiction is a terrible and costly thing.
Kathy’s mom died of lung cancer a few years later.  That cemented my hatred for cigarettes.  I don’t want to lose any more family or friends to lung cancer or heart attacks.  Stop smoking.  For those you love - stop.  Please.

 August 26th.  My dad was dead.  He was not yet 50 and he was gone.

What kind of god would take my father, and leave me - who had not yet accomplished  anything of worth.  I prayed that this could not be.  Mom and my sister could not be left to fend for themselves.  I bartered with God to trade my life for my Dad’s. I was inside a total breakdown.  I dropped out of life for three days.  I hated God.  I had not been prepared for death.

My Mom and my friends could not budge me.  I was in a most selfish, insular, immature space, and was not even trying to help my remaining family cope with their needs.  My father was gone and my faith in God went with him.  A psychiatrist called Kubler-Ross wrote that grief has five stages.  I was in a state of irrelevance.  Elizabeth K-R never mentioned that one.  I felt I was nothing, useless, a failure.  And I missed my Dad.

That hostility and self-pity, thankfully,  did not last too long.  The fact that God and I were on the outs over my Dad was not reason enough for me to doubt His existence.  The fact that I even attempted to bargain with him is a pretty strong indication that I must have faith.  And now, years later, I have a wife, children and grandchildren that I adore.  I have friends with deep roots and I have lived a charmed life.  I have laughed longer, harder and more often than any person I know.  None of these things would have happened if God had taken me up on my offer.  I am grateful for all I have and for each day I live. Thanks be to God.

I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the only other time Dad showed his more dangerous side.  You see, in his entire life with me, he never once lifted his hand to me.  I never was spanked, shaken or threatened.  He always talked to me about how things should be done.  He never shouted or lost his temper.  He was always understanding and patient.  He was a model parent.  I always learned from him and he was always proud of all that I was.

My parents ran a restaurant, gas station, marina, called the Shamrock Inn near Bass Lake, on the edge of Orillia, Ontario.  Mom ran the restaurant with her dear friend Nell Abbott, who made the best pies imaginable, fresh every day.  Dad was responsible for the rest and did the accounting.  This was all done, of course, on top of his regular job at The Ontario Hospital School, where he worked until his death.

One day, in 1959, about ten bikers, with black leather jackets and fabulous Harleys came in, had lunch and were finishing getting gas for their bikes.  The bikes were neatly lined up, side by side, with just enough room between them for their owners, to mount up.  It was a military scene in its precision.  For whatever reason one of the guys gave me  a push - just horse play, I’m sure.  I was 13 and still a skinny little kid.  Another pushed me back the other way and then there were a bunch of them laughing and shoving me and I panicked.  I turned and pushed the bike closest to me and then, like dominos, they all went over.  Things suddenly got serious.  Their beautiful, precious motorbikes had been attacked by some stupid kid, and they understandably got angry very fast.  I turned to run, and my dad was suddenly there.  He had seen the whole thing.  He held me behind him and told these men that “if any of them so much as touched his son again, he would beat the living shit out of them”.  His words.  I remember them well.  I know they could have killed him if they wanted, but they quietly picked up their rides and left.  That day I learned that a real father would lay his own life on the line for his family.  My dad was a great man and the best dad a boy could have.  I have tried to be like him all my adult life.  I know I could never be that good, but I have tried.

I still thank God for giving me my Dad.

The doctor, after a battery of tests, advised me that I had not had a heart attack.  I had pleural pneumonia.  The pain was as a result of moisture between the layers of skin containing the tiny cavities that form your lungs.  Each breath caused a friction that honestly felt like a knife stabbing deep inside me.  I would have to be hospitalized for about two weeks.  Mom was working in Orillia and could not come to see me.  My room-mate Wes had gone home for Christmas.  My poor lungs had failed me.  I was in precarious health and I was alone.

The next day, I had visitors.  Don and Barb Young had come to ask me if I would come to their house and spend Christmas with their family.  Barb had been a nurse and had convinced the doctor that she could give me the required medications and care for me for whatever time I needed to heal.  Before that year ended, I had lost my father and gained a friendship that will never end.

Barb would come to my bedroom door every few hours, night and day, and listen, making sure she could hear me breathe.  Breathing was incredibly painful, so my air intake was slow and labored.  I shared meals with their family.  I slowly regained my strength.  I played board games with their little girls, Lisa and  Jackie.  I played chess with Don's dad.  We talked about everything.  He was brilliant.  Don, on Christmas Day, made sure I was bundled warmly and took me for a short car ride.  My first outing in two weeks.  (I'm guessing poor Barb needed a break to get dinner ready.)  It didn't matter.  I was feeling alive again and in love with my new family.

It was the best of Christmases.    I eventually got well enough to go home and back to work.  Luck or fate.  The Young family gave me the greatest of gifts - their love.

Talk next week.