a sight that everyone should see first hand at once in their lifetime…Boston 4th of July!
As I reappear from a suspended moment in time, pulling myself from the bathroom vortex that had sucked me in without my permission, I hear him say, “What did you just do?” He has always known me so well. We have the kind of mutual understanding that words need no involvement. Just a glance and he knows what is going on. We have always said that we operate from the same brain. “I need to go to the hospital, right now”, was the only response I could bring to my lips. The place where thirty, tiny pills slipped past so quickly. Clenching the empty vile, which once contained a full prescription of muscle relaxers, he helped me into the car. I could already feel myself slipping, but tried my hardest to keep holding on. “I don’t want to die, I just wanted to turn it all off, it was too much, I don’t want to die.” It had all begun some six months before at a family cookout, holiday celebration. Generations filled the house and yard, gathering around tables, the pool and under tents. Good food, laughter and music filled the air to delight the senses. Cousins were everywhere, spanning across three decades, chasing each other, playing cards, blowing bubbles and splashing in the pool. Record-breaking cannonballs were set one after another. Aunts and uncles reminisced of similar times they had once spent here in Chatham at the family summerhouse. Each piece of wood, brick and mortar were set in place by my great-grandfather, back when there wasn’t another house or shop for twenty miles. This a fact that we all had heard year after year. “Clam digging time!” the words which all had impatiently waited for, sprang from my grandmother’s mouth and halted all in their tracks. Then the scurry began getting pails and shovels, hats and bug spray. The cars lined up by the dozen ready for the annual drive to Pleasant Bay. “Where is Dad?” I asked my sisters. “I think he’s upstairs watching the game.” I weaved in and out of anxious relatives. Kids were drunk from excitement, grown folks, were just drunk. Hot summer days at the Walden’s required many a pints of beer. As I reached the top step I could hear the announcer shouting, “another one hits the green monster!” Usually, there would have been far less of a crowd here and more of us filling the stands at Fenway Park, but the Sox came second to our Fourth of July tradition. “Come on Daddy, we can listen in the car.” No response. “Dad?” The whole world seemed to stop as I looked at my father, head tilted back in the reclining chair. “No! No!” He was motionless with jaw open and eyes wide and fixed, as if still staring at the door that had opened for him.
For the next hour all five generations present were taking turns performing resuscitation efforts that proved to be in vain, some cried, some vomited, some kept the young ones out of sight and oblivious to the loss that this family would feel forever. After what seemed an eternity, the ambulance arrived with lights, which made me dizzy, and sirens whose screams cut the darkening sky. The clam-digging caravan no longer headed to a joyful destination, but now somber precession to Cape Cod Hospital to meet the looming news. The ride was silent. I listened to my beating heart and every painful breath I inhaled. He can’t be gone, we were going to Hyannis to see the fireworks tonight He had taken my sisters and I every year for the past twenty-eight. This was all so surreal. As we approached the front of the emergency room I suddenly felt frozen to the hot, sticky seat. I don’t want to hear them tell me what I knew was to be the inevitable truth. My dad was gone. There would be no clam-digging, no fireworks, no sitting on the beach watching the sparklers dance to the giggles of children.
We overtook the waiting room. For a crowd of so many, no one dared speak. What could be said? “He’ll be ok”, or “Maybe he just got heat exhaustion?” We all knew what was coming when the doctor slowly walked towards us. His head slightly downward and eyes connecting with no one, “I’m sorry, he didn’t make it.” The sentence was only said once, but I replayed it over and over while I walked the long, pale, peach corridor to the room, which held my sobbing mother and dead father. “Oh, Kip, what did you go and do?” She tenderly stroked his hair and spoke quietly to him, as if he were sleeping. I watched my mother and each of my sisters wipe tears and hug him as he laid stiffening with every moment. “Puddin’ you need to say good bye now.” ”I know Mom. I just don’t know how.” I softly said, “I love you, Daddy.” And kissed his lips for the last time. The bitter coldness stung like nothing I had ever felt before. I knew in that moment the sting of death would never leave.
…continued Wednesday at noon!
72 Hours 