Fathers Day

It was supposed to be another angioplasty, but this didn’t feel right. We had been in the hospital waiting room for much longer than usual. Every so often, the surgeon would come out and say it was “going to be a bit longer.”

But it never dawned on me that something really was wrong when we were summoned to the ICU waiting room so we could go see my father. I was standing next to my mother, stifling my yawns, when the other family in the room became visibly upset. The woman started crying and saying someone was coding.

That someone was my father.

He was having a heart attack while his family stood in the next room, and we had no idea. We just stood there and waited for what seemed like an eternity, until the nurse came and took us back to our familiar waiting room. I still hadn’t put two and two together.

Pops’ surgeon looked exhausted when he finally showed up to the waiting room. Grimfaced, he pulled off his skull cap and sat next to my mother. He explained that the stent he placed into my father’s main artery was not the correct size, and that a blood clot had formed between the stent and the artery wall, causing my father to go into cardiac arrest. They managed to get the stent out, dissolve the clot and insert the correct size stent.

Pops wasn’t even close to being out of the woods yet. He was in intensive care on a lung machine that would breathe for him while his body tried to recover from his latest heart surgery. We had been through so many heart surgeries with Pops, both angioplasties and bypass, that we were expecting the usual surgery of a few hours, stop in and visit Pops and then go to dinner and home exhausted.

We were allowed to go to ICU to see Pops before we were told to go home and rest. He was unconscious. My daddy. My big, strong daddy was close to death. I was 32 years old, a year younger than my mother when she lost her own father.

No one outside the five of us knew about this latest surgery. Pops didn’t want to worry anyone and asked us to call his mother and siblings after it was over. My older brother made the calls from the hospital using my cell phone while I sat in the waiting room with Mom. My younger brother was living in San Diego at the time and couldn’t afford to come home.

I lived only a few miles from the hospital, so it was decided I would stay with Pops while my older brother stayed with Mom. The long trips to the hospital exhausted her, and we didn’t see the point in her just sitting there. My brother would stay on the farm with her and take care of things there, while I handled the hospital. He got the better end of the bargain, but nothing would have kept me from my father.


He remained on the lung machine for two days before he became strong enough to breathe on his own. I arrived at ICU shortly after the machine was removed. I had tears in my eyes when he motioned to me. His voice was barely a whisper. “Why was I being held hostage?”

I was confused. “Daddy, you’re in the hospital,” I replied. “You had a heart attack.”

He shook his head, insisting that he had been held hostage on a plane. I smashed the call button so hard I thought I had broken my hand. The nurse came running and then sat me down, explaining that my father had been under heavy sedation while on the machine and that was affecting his memory. She assured me it was temporary. She then turned to him and asked him if he knew who I was.

He said, yes, that I was his daughter. I smiled. Then he called me Patty. My mother’s name. The smile faded.

My father has always been a fan of conspiracy theories, and the sedation only amplified this. Besides the plane episode, he told my younger brother on the phone that he had been held captive in Iraq and fed radioactive material that made him have a stroke. He refused his medication and refused to wear his hospital gown. I would patiently remind him each time that he was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. He would often tell me that he was not supposed to be there. He kept forgetting he was in the hospital.

The phone calls were the worst. Somehow, he managed to have a telephone in intensive care. The nurses were overworked and exhausted and would dial for him after they ran out of patience with him. My number was first on the list. I was surprised to hear his voice when I picked up the phone. “Something’s not right,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be here.” I explained again that he was and asked to speak to his nurse. Once she assured me he was fine, I told her to take the phone away and that I would be back in the morning.

I was asleep when the phone woke me at two that morning. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he said when I answered. I reminded him of the heart attack and hung up. It rang again. I groaned and answered. “Tell Danny to get his ass down here and pick me up,” he growled.

I was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. “OK,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. My brother would have a fit the next day when I would tell him of this latest request. Pops hung up after that. I wondered why he still had the phone after I asked that it be removed. I laid in my bed and bawled, exhausted and scared my father would never be the man he was before this heart attack.

The nurse called at four to tell me that Pops tried to pull out his IV while the nurses were busy with a fellow patient having a heart attack. He told the nurses that he was going home. I got up, dressed and made the short drive to the hospital fuming with anger. I was going to get through to this man, or he was going to be committed.

Even he knew I was angry when I walked into his room. “I’m in trouble,” he said to me. “You’re damn right you are,” I replied, pushing the call button for the nurse, who got a lecture from me about the telephone.

Yet the phone remained in the room. If I weren’t available for calls, then he would call Mom and upset her. He even called his own mother, who could no longer drive. I found myself calling Grandma Betty, crying to her about my own exhaustion and fears that my father would not come to his senses. She let me cry and told me not to give up hope. He’ll come around, she said.

It happened the day my mother finally visited. He was in his now usual conspiracy mode and once again refusing to wear the hospital gown. After an hour, my mother was so exhausted she ordered the nurse to sedate him so she and my brother could sneak out and go home. She was gone when my father woke up, and this gesture finally seemed to wake him up. He was still not wearing a gown when I arrived at the hospital that afternoon, but he was lucid and throwing a fit about how “your mom left me.”

I wanted to tell him I didn’t blame her, but instead I reminded him that he needed to wear a gown. He told me the nurses didn’t give him one. I said they actually gave him at least six before I called the nurse and requested pajama bottoms. You’re wearing clothes, I commanded. He knew who was in charge. He put on the pants and took his medication when the nurses brought it to him. I was no longer tolerating this nonsense, and he knew it.

I left the hospital that Friday night after the doctor told me Pops would go home on Monday. The next morning, Pops called me at seven to tell me to come get him because he was going home. I asked to speak to the nurse, thinking it was more of his shenanigans, but it was true. Pops came around—just like Grandma Betty said he would.

It’s been three and a half years, but Pops does not remember any of it. When he starts laughing at how he basically tortured everyone with his conspiracy theories, I remind him that he refused to wear clothes. The laughter stops.

It was exhausting and stressful and scary, but I’d do it again if I had to because he’s my daddy. Now matter how old I am, he will always be daddy to me.

Happy Fathers Day, Pops.

We Are All Someone's Child

I was driving on the two lane country highway to the small town hospital to say good-bye to Grandma Betty when I promised myself that I would not cry. She was dying—even she knew she didn’t have much time left—and I wasn’t going to upset her with my tears. This would be the last time I would see her, and I was determined to make sure it was full of love.

It was barely nine in the morning when I pulled into the parking lot next to the tiny, one-story hospital. I went inside, not sure where I was going when I wandered into a large group of Johnson relatives huddled in the hallway. The news wasn’t good. There was nothing else the doctors could do for Grandma, so we were going to make her comfortable and keep her company until she left us.

I left my dad and his siblings in the hallway and went into Grandma’s room. I was wearing my glasses, which were not familiar to her, so I spoke first out of concern she wouldn’t know who I was. Immediately recognizing my voice, she turned to the nurse who was combing her hair and proudly announced that her only granddaughter had come to visit.

I reminded myself of the promise I made in the car: no tears.

I took the comb from the nurse and continued fixing Grandma Betty’s short silvery-grey hair. It was unevenly cut and without any real style. I could tell my aunt had been cutting it at home again. I chuckled as I noticed a few strands of black woven into the silver and grey. I am the second oldest of Grandma Betty’s 10 grandchildren and remember when she had a full head of coal black hair. I struggled to remember when she turned grey, couldn’t and gave up.

I put the comb down and moved over to the chair on the other side of her bed. I sat and made small talk with her, telling her about the long drive (“No, Grandma, I did not see any deer and I will make sure to watch for them when I leave. I don’t want to hit one, either”) and listening to her tell me about my brothers visiting her the previous day. She clutched my hand and repeated weakly, “I am so happy to see you.” The same phrase she always said to me whenever I visited.

No tears.

The morning dragged on into afternoon as my family crowded into Grandma Betty’s tiny hospital room. She was the only patient in the room, so we took advantage and spread out. I tried to ignore the obvious struggle for breath coming from the hospital bed and laughed when she scolded my Uncle Mike about trying to access his work servers on his laptop. She even apologized to the nurses he had bring a long cable into her room in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt to log in. “My son and his computer,” she said, shaking her head.

After an uneventful lunch of hospital food, my four-year-old cousin, the youngest of Grandma Betty’s 10 grandchildren, arrived with his father. My mother always claims Sean “livens the place up” wherever he goes, and he didn’t fail to disappoint. He jabbered on about his day at summer camp when he suddenly stopped and stared at Grandma Betty. “When are you coming home, Meme?” he asked her, using the nickname all 10 of us called her whenever we first learned to talk and struggled to pronounce grandma. “I’ll be home soon,” she replied. “It won’t be much longer.”

No tears.

Afternoon turned into evening and the breathing got more and more labored. The oxygen mask was worn for longer periods of time and she struggled to stay awake. I sat in the chair next to her bed and held onto her hand. It was warm, just like it always was. She started to slip in and out of consciousness. I would put my mouth next to her ear and say, “I love you, Meme” and feel her squeeze my hand. Eventually, the squeezing stopped.

The nurse came into the room to check on Grandma Betty and announced that we had just a few hours. I practiced deep breathing like I was taught in yoga to stay calm and to keep the tears away. She was struggling and in pain. It was time.

But it wasn’t. Grandma came back to us. The oxygen mask came off and she leaned back into the pillows and closed her eyes. The struggle against death was exhausting.

I calmly walked over to her bed and stood next to her, taking her right hand in mine. This was the hand with all five fingers intact, unlike the left one I’d been clutching off and on all day. The left one had two stubs for the middle and ring fingers after a childhood accident with an axe. That’s why no knives or anything sharp were allowed around her grandchildren. I clutched her hand tight, bent forward until my mouth was next to her ear. I told her I loved her, that I admired her fight and knew she was in pain and that it was OK to let go. My voice was strong and steady.

I kissed her forehead and walked over to my father and watched as the family followed my lead and whispered their private good-byes to the woman who was the foundation of our family. I told my father to go. He seemed hesitant. I said go while she’s still with us and can hear.

My big, strong father—the man who can fix anything, whether it’s a broken bicycle or a broken heart—walked over to his mother’s bedside and took her hand. He began whispering in her ear when I felt the sob rise in my chest. Watching my father—my strong father—tell her mother good-bye was too much. I couldn’t stop the sob as it loudly escaped from me. It was so strong and sudden that it didn’t sound like a sob—more like the barking sea lions I’d seen the week before at the zoo—and it caused my Aunt Pat, the oldest of my father’s two sisters to look at me in alarm. It was my Aunt Peg, the sister who at 40 is closer in age to me than my father, who came running over and hugged me close, allowing the hot tears to spill onto her t-shirt as the sobs I fought all day came rushing forward. I finally found the one thing my father couldn’t fix, and it ripped my heart out.

Mother

One of the earliest books I remember reading is called Mom, You’re Fired. It is story of a girl named Tina who was embarrassed by her mother.

I grew up feeling embarrassed by my mother. She was everything I didn’t want to be: married at 18, a mother at 19 and barely earning a GED. She wore her black hair in a short puffy style, weighed down with hairspray and dressed in shabby mismatched clothes. Her makeup looked like it was spackled on with a putty knife and always seemed to be the first thing people noticed when they saw her. She was the original Tammy Faye.

Most women cite their mothers as inspiration. I do, too, but in a different way. She drove me not to be like her. I studied hard, read everything I could get my hands on and counted the days until I could leave for college. I wanted to be a journalist and have a career instead of being an unhappy housewife with three kids and a stingy husband. I changed my hairstyle constantly, making sure to avoid anything short and puffy, and wore lightly applied makeup. I was determined to be better than her.

In Mom, You’re Fired Tina eventually learns to accept her mother and not be embarrassed by her. I didn’t outgrow that. I entered adulthood just as embarrassed of my mother as I was during childhood. I avoided her as much as possible.

I was 27 and just months into my new career in public relations when my mother was diagnosed with liver disease. She entered the hospital and was discharged home after a weekend with not much encouragement from the doctor. She was home 24 hours when my father called me at work, asking me to come home to see if she needed to go back to the hospital. I think he was afraid she would die and he wouldn’t know what to do. After much begging and pleading, I agreed.

She was propped up on the sofa when I entered the living room, holding a glass of water. She put the glass to her lips to drink and water started spilling out of the glass onto her sweatshirt. Her liver was functioning so poorly that bile was backing up into her bloodstream and poisoning her. She would die without medical attention. I called for the ambulance and followed in my car back to St. Louis, not expecting her to make it through the night. I brought my dad home with me and helped him call relatives until he fell asleep on the sofa.

I underestimated my mother. She’s a fighter. She made it through that night, and many rough days and nights after that. She spent six weeks in that hospital, willing her body to recover and start repairing itself so she could return home. Death could find someone else to visit. Mom was busy.

I got to know my mother during those six weeks. I would work all day and then spend evenings in her hospital room watching television or reading to her. She loved The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby—two of my favorite books. She told me about the first time she had read both books, which was when she returned to school for her GED. Growing up, the only time I saw my mother read was when a copy of the National Enquirer made it into the house. She told me that if she could have had a career, it would have been in the media, and that she was so proud that was the path I had chosen.

But I broke down when she told me she had read my copy of Mom, You’re Fired when I was a kid and liked the story. She read it because she thought the title was hysterical, and the story comforted her whenever one of her children became angry with her. Remembering how Tina came to accept her mother, she hoped that I would accept her. It took 27 years, but I did.

It’s been eight years, and my mother is still with us. I thought about those six weeks in the hospital while waiting with my family to be seated for lunch on Mothers Day. No longer embarrassed, I was proud to be standing next to her and honoring her that day. I think she liked that gift better than her actual Mothers Day present, a subscription to People magazine.

A Better Way to Make Decisions

I was overworked, exhausted and feeling like my life wasn’t my own. Little did I know my saving grace was in the mailbox that day.

I didn’t pay much attention to the business magazine that came in the mail, tossing it on the dining room table as I rushed to let the dog outside after a long day at the office. It was a beautiful day, unusually warm for winter in St. Louis, so I decided to sit on the deck and go through the mail while enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.

I didn’t recognize the woman on the cover of the business magazine, but I knew the name: Suzy Welch. I had read some of the columns she co-writes with her husband, Jack, and really admired their advice and tone. Curious to see what she was promoting, I flipped to the article.
And it changed my life.

Suzy was promoting her upcoming book about a decision making process she calls 10-10-10. The more I read, the more impatient I was for her book to be released. When it finally was, I immediately grabbed a copy. It’s the best purchase I’ve made in a long time.

What is 10-10-10? Suzy calls it a “life transforming idea.” It’s a roadmap for decision making that looks at the impact of the decision on your life in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years. It always starts with a question, such as should I put my freelance writing on hold while I finish my master’s degree? (a recent decision I made using 10-10-10)

Why does 10-10-10 work? It gives you structure and logic for decision making, as well as allowing you a way to explain your decision to others. After reading the book, I realized I was making too many decisions based on what Suzy calls “The Two Gs,” which are gut and guilt. Neither approach worked for me and frankly, I don’t know anyone who has made good decisions based on their gut or guilt. Basing my decisions on The Two Gs left me feeling exhausted and like I wasn’t in control of my own life. Since I started using 10-10-10, I no longer feel this way.

Another reason it works is the process makes you examine that middle part of the decision making process that often gets ignored, the next 10 months. Many of us focus on the present and the long-term impacts when making decisions. By also considering the intermediate impact, we can make better-rounded and focused decisions.

I’ve seen the benefits of 10-10-10 in my life, and I am grateful to Suzy Welch for sharing this wonderful idea. It has truly changed my life for the better, and I am looking forward to the next 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years.