JANKY ELVES, MUD ON THE DANCE FLOOR AND FAMILIAL SPLINTERING
A December to Remember
It was a December to remember, but not for the reasons the TV commercials would have you believe. Both of my parents were hospitalized for emergencies, and my father ultimately passed away.
It was a surreal month, and I have no profound conclusions other than grief, fear, anxiety, absurdity, humor and idiosyncrasy all seem to be born of the same mother, all unlikely bedmates in the human experience.
Here is my stream of consciousness from that time (some details have been changed to protect individual privacy):
It’s holiday time—The entire hospital is decorated with janky elves, cotton snow, tinsel and candy canes. The lobby is a diabolical echo chamber of dueling piano players pounding out Christmas favorites at opposite ends of the hospital. The false joy leaves a bad taste. I wonder if I will ever be able to cleave the stress of this December from future holiday seasons.
My mom needs an urgent MRI and cannot have one until we remove the several designer bracelets she is wearing that can only be opened with the tiny, precious screwdriver that came in the box at the time of purchase. I run from the hospital to her house, ravage her drawers and can’t find it. I then remember an obscure, local jewelry store and frantically drive there to see if they have a tool that will work. The jeweler does and painstakingly demonstrates how to use it (while my mom languishes under a heat lamp in an outdoor waiting area at the full-to-capacity ER). He says that he happens to know my mom, wishes her well and sends me off with some holiday Baklava.
Dr. Carrie is my parents’ general physician. She looks like a red-headed Claire Foy, specializes in geriatric medicine and is an angel on earth who deserves her own TV show. After all, who purposefully decides to specialize in geriatrics? “This is not the end,” she says to my mom. “I will tell you when it’s the end. That will be our deal.” It’s a statement rife with compassion.
My childhood friend calls to check on us. Her ageing father is a renowned geriatric doctor himself. But he now needs a geriatric doctor for his own care. My friend and I marvel at the meta-ness of this situation—the geriatric doctor is in need of a geriatric doctor…
I’m back and forth from my house to the hospital, logging 60-70 miles a day. I blast the radio and sing along at the top of my lungs to calm myself down, There’s mud on the dance floor is the lyric that’s become my anthem. It’s brilliant, I think, because there’s something so sensory about a muddy dance floor. Months later, I find out that the lyric is actually, It’s Murder on the Dance Floor.
Each day when I check into hospital security, they ask ‘what room?’ I have two guests in residence, I say…both of my parents are here. They pause and look at me with sad eyes. I never get used to being on the receiving end of sad eyes.
The hospital cafeteria advertises daily specials like cheesy fries, supreme beef pizza and grande enchiladas. It’s a wonder anyone manages to stay out of the hospital.
I feel pain in my body corresponding to the exact locations where my parents are afflicted. I stare at them while they sleep in their respective rooms, looking for reflections of my face in theirs.
I regularly run into a young woman, also visiting someone in the ICU. She is always dressed immaculately, whereas I look like a bus hit me. One day, I admire her coat. She, in turn, admires my handbag. I believe we’ve been put in each other’s path to remind ourselves that there is beauty beyond the hospital walls.
Doctors in the family are a blessing and a burden. They are sometimes able to glean helpful information from the specialists, but they mainly conduct the band from afar and cast doubt on the competency of the professionals treating my parents. Check the creatine! they bark at me. What even is creatine?
I remember that I have committed to attending a ticketed women’s holiday luncheon at a private venue. I waffle on whether to go, but my parents encourage the diversion and, plus, I’ve already paid. The entertainment is a quintet of Black women styled like the 1960s band, the Ronettes. May all your Christmases be whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite, they sing. The last word sounds particularly elongated because the audience is, in fact, so overwhelmingly white. If the movies The Help and Get Out had a baby, it would be this lunch. It’s too problematic for words, yet everyone but me appears to be enthralled. I have come to the wrong place seeking tidings of comfort and joy.
I try to speak to my parents in Hindi to communicate things we don’t want others to understand. My Hindi is so lame that my parents can’t decipher what I’m saying. Just speak English! my Dad shouts out of frustration.
I am doing a terrible job of caring for my husband and kids. I am tired and irritable and unpresent. I come unhinged when my tween misplaces her school laptop (ultimately tracked and found) and tell her that I am so angry at her that I can barely look at her. My own meanness startles me—I’m Mommie Dearest. I make it better the only way I know how—a trip to Brandy Melville.
The one time I make it to the school pick up line, I spot a massive stuffed elephant toy that I had given to a friend’s son when he was a newborn in the trunk of her nanny’s minivan. It’s clearly on its way to Goodwill. How transient things are…and people too.
My parents are immigrants—their friends’ circle is the only extended family we have. Their outreach and care sustains me. My brilliant life coach once told me that friends can be categorized into weeds (necessary for the garden to thrive but ultimately need to be removed), flowers (fun, pretty and temporary) and oaks (the stalwarts of the garden). I have done the work of removing the weeds, have tons of flowers in my garden (I enjoy them), but I miss my oaks. I vow to be more intentional about cultivating oaks.
My sibling and I are blustery and shrill with one another at the beginning of the crisis but, once it becomes clear that we are going to lose our father, we soften. We enjoy a closeness and openness that we haven’t had since we both respectively got married.
…and despite all of the above, there is a palpable distance between him and I. Our connective tissue is our individual devotion to our parents, not our affection for each other. I keep returning to the word—SPLINTERING, that I am witnessing how what was once a nuclear family mutates into smaller, separate parts. It adds to my grief—because the family unit I’ve known my entire life is changing/has changed…permanently.
The nurse on duty calls me to say that Dad isn’t feeling so hot. By the time I rush to the hospital, the crisis has subsided and Dad is on his laptop. “He’s good. He’s been day trading. He gave me a few tips,” the nurse says. All of us—including Dad—have a chuckle…that’s Dad for you. Five days later, Dad passed.
I’ve never uttered (or had uttered to me) the words “God bless you” with more frequency than in the past several weeks. This phrase is not really part of my vernacular. I’m always startled when the moms from our local Catholic school use it in their emails and as a way to say hi and bye. Why are we taken aback when God is invoked in secular settings? Maybe we shouldn’t be…
Dr. Carrie comes by on her rounds—a sweet lullaby plays on the speaker system—rock-a-bye baby in the treetop. She puts her hand on her heart and looks upward as if into the ether. “The hospital does this every time a baby is born,” she explains. She gets teary eyed. “I’m getting emotional because despite all this pain and suffering, a new soul has entered our universe,” she says. “Isn’t it something?”
As always, take good care.
Xo
-P
Instagram: @priyaadesai1
Much love to you and your family 🙏🏼💚