The New Normal

Written 6.2.09

Our minds can deceive us. I don’t know whether they mean to play tricks of perception and perspective on us, but they do. And they do so whether we’re looking through a glass darkly or a clear one straight on.

A few days ago, my Dad underwent a sextuple bypass.

I still remember getting the call. I’ve set up my Blackberry to ring or beep or buzz for just about anything from a text message to a wake up alarm, so it’s not an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. The rings are usually phone calls and typically, they’re calls from my wife, Mom, sister, friends, and even the occasional call from my 4-year-old daughter. This one was from my Mom and it was the kind of call most sons dread receiving.

“The doctor says your Dad has a few clogged arteries. He’s going to need to have a bypass either tomorrow or the day after.”

It was serious, so serious that my father had been flown to a hospital specializing in cardiac surgery and admitted that same day. Do not pass go and do not collect $200.

“Oh,” I said after a pause that felt like it was much longer than it probably was. “Let me talk to my boss.”

After 30 minutes and two conversations, I was on my way home. 12 hours, two plane flights, and a rental car drive later, I was back at the home place.

During my stay, I found myself experiencing an almost continual number of “sea changes” (the new buzzword of the year), odd moments where I would come to the realization that there was now this whole different reality within my perception that I’d either been ignoring or hadn’t been aware of in the first place.

On the whole, I tend to avoid surprises. As I’ve mentioned before, I prefer to be prepared, even for the worst-case scenario. Even if that preparation is primarily mental in nature. The night before your father goes in for a major medical procedure, the worst-case scenario is an obvious, albeit a morbid, one. Although I didn’t want to imagine losing my Dad, I knew I had to prepare myself for the possibility. That, of course, made for a very long night.

Up until about 8 years ago, I considered myself fortunate. Beyond a great-grandmother who’d passed away when I was barely a teenager, my family and friends had a funny way of staying alive. Eight years ago, that began to change. I’ve since lost a mentor, two grandparents, a nephew, and various other people I’d grown to know and love. Their losses have not always been easy for me to bear and I don’t think they should be.

The morning he underwent the procedure, I remember being struck by my father’s appearance as he lay in the hospital bed waiting for the hospital staff to come and prep him for surgery. He was still himself; he laughed, joked, and seemed quite relaxed. He told us that he loved us, told my Mom not to worry even though we all knew she would. Yet there was something different about him. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but when it hit me, it hit me all at once: the previous night, I’d been mentally picturing my Dad as I remembered him when I was a teenager. The man lying on the bed before me was decades older.

I began to think about all the people I’d lost over the past few years. Their mental pictures were younger, too. And then I started to wonder: How long do we carry around the snapshots we have of our parents from childhood? What leads us to fix on the images that we do? And how am I viewed by those I know and love?

It was an experience that, all these days later, I am still trying to wrap my head around.

Fortunately, the bypass went smoothly and my Dad is back at the home place. His recuperation seems to be going well and, if he follows doctor’s orders, should emerge with a brand new lease on life. I now have some time to allow my perspective of my Dad to expand so that I can see him not as he was when I was 16, but as he is now.

I couldn’t ask for a better Father’s Day gift than that.