“It’s the kind of infection that speeds up quickly,” the doctor explained. It had attached to the implants in her back and had spread throughout her body in a matter of weeks. “He would have died within 24 hours if you hadn’t brought him in.”
Kenny immediately went through several surgeries, almost dying on the operating table. My mother and I lived in turmoil, enduring most of his life-threatening procedures and taking anti-anxiety medication when we couldn’t take it anymore.
That was when the memories of my father’s death began.
I was standing in the upstairs bathroom of my apartment, examining myself in the mirror, my eyes and head throbbing strangely in unison. I saw myself at 16, sitting in the car with my father. She had just picked me up from my job as a waitress in a restaurant and we were making the 10-minute drive back to our house. My father was not a man of many words, and I can remember numerous trips with him that were spent in silence, including that last one.
When we reached the entrance, I ran inside, closed the door of my room and went to bed. The next morning, I got dressed, ate cereal, and left for school without saying goodbye. It was early when I was called from class and asked to take my belongings to the principal’s office, where my mother’s co-worker picked me up and broke the news to me on the way to the hospital: “I don’t know how to tell you this. Your father died.”
At just 46 years old, he had suffered a sudden cardiac arrhythmia. During the previous years, he had been unemployed and had assumed the role of a stay-at-home father. I cannot say that he prospered; an injury prevented him from doing the physical work he liked, carpentry and furniture making. But every morning he made breakfast for my brother and me, took us to school, and ran errands as needed. Still, he often seemed to be aimlessly watching TV alone or looking out into the backyard.
Kenny slowly began to heal from the infection, and I thought of this stranger who needed a kidney, and I heard that little voice again: “Maybe I’m the person the request was addressed to.”
–
