At some indistinct point, the grey pre-dawn fades into bright white, and the sun is up, albeit invisibly behind a bank of clouds. People — whoever they are, from whichever tribe — shake hands, hug, and say, “We have turned the year!” We do it, too, much to the bafflement of the children, who are now immersed in a fantasy in which the stones are dragons and they are their keepers. There is no distinct moment of release. It’s reminiscent of a missed orgasm — the long, intent, breath-holding buildup that comes to nothing much. The significance is the same either way. Light is coming back into the world, after months of encroaching darkness. The end of winter is near.
I stay near the entrance of the hospital early one morning, hoping that the clouds will clear and I’ll get to glimpse that golden ball framed by standing stones. But it’s not to be. As I walk back inside, past the abandoned chairlift and up the staircase, my father lay on his back in his dialysis chair. Snakes of infusion tubes ran from his hand collecting blood to the dialysis machine which made a churning sound as its dial rotated. On the opposite wall hung photographs of an American flag. His eyes were half-open.
His attending physician, Dr. Holmes, sat in a chair nearby, reading his chart as if it was an old copy of a Reader’s Digest.
“Look who’s here, — it’s your son!” my mom said.
I bent down so that dad and I were face-to-face. Was he cognitive? Or not? It was hard to know. And if he was, would he be happy to see me? I was the one who stayed far away. The one who came once a year to visit — much worse.
“Hi, Dad,” I said softly. How are you feeling?.”
He nods a little and smiles. It could mean something. It could mean anything. I look at his frail frame and in some ways, it reminds me of myself. Many years from now.
When I was taking my dad to the local hospital’s dialysis center during one of his visits to the US, I would stop by Carl, a veteran being treated in the vascular surgery section. He and I had met by accident and I liked the way he asked about my father — In a nonchalant, but genuine manner — every time. Carl talked about everything except his time in the marines.
During the weeks, I picked up some basic information about Carl from the surrounding doctors and nurses. By six every morning, Carl could be found indulging in his first pack of the day down by the loading dock of the hospital. For breakfast, Carl, a diabetic, ate marshmallows and candy corn, before presenting to dialysis. The rest of his days he spent whittling away his legs as the dry gangrene slowly ascended. We were literally watching him disappear, bit by bit, from this world.
“Why doesn’t he stop smoking and take better care of himself?” I asked Dr. Holmes, the senior medical surgeon who was also an Army veteran.
He looked up from scribbling something in the chart, thought for a moment, and said, “I don't know. But I know nobody asked him to stop smoking when they sent him overseas to defend our country. No one asked him to take better care of himself when they sent him out to be shot at. He did what he could for us then”.
“And I’ll do what I can for him now.”
