The older relatives in our family (I am NOT one of the older relatives thank you) like to play a game called “holiday in the hospital”. No holiday is too minor to be excluded from this fun, fun game. Labor day weekend is coming up, so my mother is going in for what Southerners like to euphemize as ” minor heart problems” instead of actually talking about what is really wrong. I am having flashbacks to my father’s hospitalization several years ago just prior to the first UT game of the season.

Mom: “They’ll go in through the femoral artery.”
Me: “Just like they did when dad had it done.”
Mom: “Oh, that’s right. Well, I was with him and it didn’t take very long.”
Me: “I was there, too.”
Mom: “Oh, that’s right. I forgot you were there.”

To this day, my father only remembers that my brother flew down from DC when he was in the hospital. I guess my mother only remembers my brother, too. I found my father, called my mother at her office and drove my father for medical help. I had a small nervous breakdown the day he left the hospital because the hospital saved his life. He was safe there (yes, I know that was stupid). Home was dangerous. The entire event felt like a preview. In my mind I decided that this was what will eventually kill my father. I still believe that. Now I feel like I know the beast that my mother will fight the rest of her life.