Waking up at home the day after my dad's surgery.....

The day I arrived home (Friday) was the day my dad was scheduled to have open-heart surgery. The hospital is an hour away, so we drove back and forth initally. The first day involved waiting in the critical care lobby with family while the surgery took place. We all were allowed to visit with him briefly that night in pairs. One of my sisters spent the night with my mom in the waiting room while the rest of us went home for the night. I can't ever remember a time waking up in my childhood home without my parents there. Once again, this time in the early morning hours (Saturday) while the sun was still sleeping, I took out my pen and notebook to document the feeling. I was interrupted by my younger sister before the post was completed, but this is what I managed to capture:

"I awake to deafening silence, replacing the sounds of life so easily taken for granted--like mom in the kitchen quietly clanging pots and pans while cooking up something to give us a reason to move out of bed. Absent is dad's gentle padding about (making himself busy in whatever way he can, waiting for the cues that will guide his day until he finds refuge elsewhere), replaced instead with a thrashing about as he fights to reclaim the life he so badly wants to continue."

"Hospitals provide a kind of education made necessary by moments like these. Words like blood clot, heart attack, blood thinners, clogged/blocked arteries, atrial fibrillation, a critical care unit, quadruple bypass suddenly take on new meaning. The good news is that his heart was in 'sinus rhythm' when we left the hospital last night, but he was painfully struggling to consciously return to a ravaged body that can only heal with the help of his strong constitution."