Smoke Signals Crisis
So Saturday I hit a moment of sheer panic. You see, I found out my father’s wife died and that he’d been hospitalized last week with seizures, having been found in his car by a hospital security guard. (My God! He’d just been driving!) I should tell you that Dad has epilepsy which has been extremely well controlled with medication most of his life.
So, Saturday, I’m immediately thinking:
- Is Dad OK? Does his cardiologist know? Will he remember that he had combined seizures and a stroke about 10 years ago? Does his primary care physician know what’s going on? Is anyone coordinating the different aspects of his care?
- The funeral will be next Saturday. Why Saturday, two days before Christmas? Does it even make sense for me to try to fly down to Florida for the service, given holiday travel chaos? Is it wrong of me not to?
- Is Dad OK? I know he’s home. Should he be under medical care?
- Why are we just now finding out that Dad was in the hospital?
- I feel guilty that most of this will fall into the lap of my sister, Meg, because she lives in Florida, about an hour away from Dad.
- Dad’s going to say all kinds of wonderful things about his newly departed spouse–of course. But does he have to say she’s the love of his life and other such “singularly stated” pronouncements? He married this person only three months after Mother died, following more than 40 years of marriage. He and this woman had been married less than four years. Can I keep my cool with that?
- Dad’s going to need help and support. Should I go down after the funeral, when he says he’ll need support the most?
- My other Dad (yes, I have two–this gets really complicated) has been in a nursing home for a month. Although I talk with him on the phone all the time, I haven’t gone down to southern Indiana to see him–something I’d planned to do after the first of the year.
- I haven’t finished my shopping, wrapping and other holiday tasks. How can I go to Florida?
- Should I go to Indiana instead?
- What if one father finds out I went to see the other father first??
Aahhhh!!!
I received the news at our weekly gathering of friends, several of whom smoke. And I bummed a cigarette from a good friend. And I smoked part of it. And it made me feel really sick. I haven’t smoked since.
I can’t react by smoking when I’m feeling overwhelmed in a crisis. But I don’t know what to substitute at a time like that.
