November 2017

It’s been a few months since he died. A simple, white stone now stands watch for him at Camp Butler National Cemetery.

I have put off canceling his cell-phone service as long as possible. His children, friends and family from all over the world still call to hear him say “Leave me a message,” then weep and pour their hearts out into his voice mail.

But money is tight. The phone has to go. It really wasn’t much good, when none of his doctors would call him on it when he so desperately needed them.

I’m sitting at my desk when the phone rings. A blue jay is feeding her baby in the coral tree outside my window. She is determined and direct, pecking her catch in gentle spurts into the little bird’s gaping beak. The fledgling squawks hoarsely for more. I pick up the phone.

It’s my son’s oncologist. My heart no longer jumps into my throat when I hear his voice; we speak frequently now, comanaging my son’s leukemia–a case that is proving anything but ordinary. I have no idea why he is calling today.

My 72-year-old dad is in neurologic intensive care in a strange hospital in a strange city far from his home and from mine. In the midst of my fully-booked morning of seeing patients, I am trying to reach my diminutive stepmother on the cell phone that she does not know how to program to hear her layperson’s interpretation of what the strange doctors are telling her.

Unable to get through to my step-mother, I step into the next exam room to see Mr. P, a 72-year-old man with stable coronary disease and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). He has difficulty hearing and is here with his protective wife for a routine checkup.