Allow this to be all I can offer at the moment.....
Monday, February 21, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
And with each breath....
In my perfectly average middle class American life, I have had the extreme fortune of getting the best of a bad situation. When I was two years old, my parents divorced, like so many others. My father drifted in and out of my life up until the last five years. I was so very lucky, though, because my mother met someone quickly after the divorce, and I took to him immediately. His name is Bob.
I don’t remember a whole lot from my early childhood, honestly; just a blur of events, a collage of an overall happy childhood. Bob was my stepfather as long as I can recall, despite the fact that he and my mother didn’t marry until I was eight or nine. I gleefully referred to him as “My Bob,” and took every opportunity to get his attention. He was about twenty five when he came into my life, and he took to stepfatherhood immediately.
I recall he owned a motorcycle, and he used to take me on it when I was as young as three. I would sit in front of him, huge helmet on, with firm instructions to hold onto the mirrors tightly, and he would take me to the grocery store or for candy. Of course, today someone would call Child Services. My mother was never completely comfortable with me on the motorcycle, but I carried on so much she always just gave in.
When I had my first bad cut, my first splinter, my first sprained ankle, he was there for all of it. He taught me to ride my bike, and assembled all of them up until the one I bought this year. He taught me to drive, and he was the first one to the hospital when I crashed my first car. When my mother cut my nails too short or brushed my hair too roughly, I’d demand Bob do it instead, and he always did, and never, ever hurt me.
He gave me away at my wedding. He designed and built my loft bed. He taught me how to make spaghetti.
He did all of this while working up to seventy hours a week for Nazar Rubber Company. He was a lathe operator, in a dirty, smelly, loud factory. He carried me on his health insurance. He provided for my mother and I for years. The plant eventually went under, about fifteen months before he was able to retire. He is unable to collect his full pension. He had held a string of minimum wage jobs, all the while he was depressed and listless.
And now, he is held tight in the clutches of COPD. He is on oxygen about seventy five percent of the day, and it has been determined that he wakes up from oxygen deprivation seventy three times in one hour. He can barely breathe, barely move, and he is gaining weight and retaining fluid, all of which contribute to his overall condition. He is absolutely disinterested in any of the treatments the medical team has offered him.
I know that I am watching him slowly die.
I don’t remember a whole lot from my early childhood, honestly; just a blur of events, a collage of an overall happy childhood. Bob was my stepfather as long as I can recall, despite the fact that he and my mother didn’t marry until I was eight or nine. I gleefully referred to him as “My Bob,” and took every opportunity to get his attention. He was about twenty five when he came into my life, and he took to stepfatherhood immediately.
I recall he owned a motorcycle, and he used to take me on it when I was as young as three. I would sit in front of him, huge helmet on, with firm instructions to hold onto the mirrors tightly, and he would take me to the grocery store or for candy. Of course, today someone would call Child Services. My mother was never completely comfortable with me on the motorcycle, but I carried on so much she always just gave in.
When I had my first bad cut, my first splinter, my first sprained ankle, he was there for all of it. He taught me to ride my bike, and assembled all of them up until the one I bought this year. He taught me to drive, and he was the first one to the hospital when I crashed my first car. When my mother cut my nails too short or brushed my hair too roughly, I’d demand Bob do it instead, and he always did, and never, ever hurt me.
He gave me away at my wedding. He designed and built my loft bed. He taught me how to make spaghetti.
He did all of this while working up to seventy hours a week for Nazar Rubber Company. He was a lathe operator, in a dirty, smelly, loud factory. He carried me on his health insurance. He provided for my mother and I for years. The plant eventually went under, about fifteen months before he was able to retire. He is unable to collect his full pension. He had held a string of minimum wage jobs, all the while he was depressed and listless.
And now, he is held tight in the clutches of COPD. He is on oxygen about seventy five percent of the day, and it has been determined that he wakes up from oxygen deprivation seventy three times in one hour. He can barely breathe, barely move, and he is gaining weight and retaining fluid, all of which contribute to his overall condition. He is absolutely disinterested in any of the treatments the medical team has offered him.
I know that I am watching him slowly die.
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