Dad finally got released from the hospital today. Around 3pm.

Mom was admitted to the hospital today. Around 4:30 pm.

Shit you not.

Apparently Mom has acquired some blood clots in her lungs. She also may (may?) have had a mild heart attack over the last three days. The blood clots have fucked up her labs so much that they just can’t tell. Anyway she’s in the hospital for the next few days for labs and observation. Her chemo may be put on hold for a bit which, if you know her situation, doesn’t necessarily bode well.

Oh, we’re pretty sure our in-home childcare provider has quit, too.

Oh, and my wife wrenched her back out.

In case I haven’t mentioned this, I have been home (with wife and two boys) for seven days (not all together) out of the last six weeks.

Luckily, one of my wife’s sisters is taking the boys for a mini-vacation until Wednesday and the other will be at our house with the boys until Saturday.

Also, the following week is my wife’s spring break, so we’re good that week too. Little miracles.

I’m pretty sure that when this is over—however it gets over—the wife and I will host a party where, later in the evening, I will undergo a Cuba Libre enema and snort some bath salts. I’m joking about the bath salts.

Our bodies are such fragile complicated things, I honestly don’t know how we survive for more than a couple of months.

A couple of little things go wrong with your chemistry and whoopsy-daisy, you’re dead. Not drinking enough? Your kidneys fail and you’re dead.

It truly is a miracle that we’re alive. We should live relishing that fact. Live like this moment is the luckiest moment we have.

When it starts snowing, stop and watch it. It works like Paxil. At least for me.

There is something so shockingly calming about snow. Nice phrase, right? “Shockingly calming.” I don’t how else to describe it. When I first notice snow falling there is always a little shock. I guess it’s the sudden realization that my environment is changing. I don’t know.

But here come these gorgeous, perfectly intricate and individual little fragile flakes from no where, some lazily falling, some dancing, some plummeting through their often brief moment of existence. Sometimes I can even see two or more that seem to be moving together.

They are the perfect example for me of life’s impermanence. They just do what they do for however long they may be here. They don’t want anything from anyone. They just are. Then they’re gone.

The perfect Zen.

I can actually feel my breathing slow. My head feels lighter and my shoulders relax, if just for a little while. It truly is a momentary release.

I want my boys to be snow watchers.

What I have been jotting lately are lessons I damn-well hope I’ve learned from this experience. So, that’s what I’ll be posting for a bit. I probably won’t try to be witty with these—it’s too tiring these days. They’re just going to be short, honest reactions to recent thoughts and realizations. Here goes:

_____________________

When you turn 50, begin streamlining your possessions.

Because, you know what? You’re going to die. Or you’ll be otherwise incapacitated. And the last thing your kids will want to do is have to grieve (or nurse you) while sifting through your incomprehensible piles of shit.

Now, I’m not talking about your memory-stuff. That’s the shit that your kids will actually want to go through. That’s the stuff that heals, the memories, the nostalgia, the stuff that they may want to keep because it means something to them. But, for the love of all that is holy, no one I know needs fifty-three placemats. If you could cut it down to eight, that’s great. I’ll even take twelve, if four are named placemats with psychedelic turtles purchased from a Tulsa Stuckey’s in 1977. I’m okay with that.

For example, after spending some time working through the kitchen drawer that contained eighteen woven trivets, twenty-some-odd shaped birthday candles (including one that was a very dusty “30” [I am 43, my oldest nephew is 25, if that tells you something]), a quarter of the previously decried placemats, innumerable tourist matchbooks, an odd assortment of straws, instructions for an electric fondue pot, and some collectible spoons, I was sitting with my father in his office. He picked up this little stack of red plastic flat rectangular sticks. There were about twenty in the stack, bound with a rubber band. I had left them on his desk because I didn’t know what they were. I thought they were some kind of thing he might use to check his blood sugar.

“You know what these are?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“You know those little snack packs of crackers with the little square of soft cheese?”

“I guess.”

“These are those little plastic knives that come in those packets. You use these to scoop out the cheese and spread them on the cracker.”

“Ahh.”

“I saw these and thought, ‘I can do something with these.’”

“Really?”

“Oh, hell yeah. I got about five or six stacks like this around the house somewhere.”

“Awesome.”

Don’t make your kids try to figure out how important six stacks of plastic cheese knives are. They will be too busy with other more important things.

And stop hording food. Especially in boxes. It just means bugs. Lots and lots and lots of bugs. But that might be another post.

The previous day —well, night really— was a little son-tough on me.

I am going to try and coin the phrase “son-tough.” These are the things that usually hit when the son/parent role begins to reverse. I’m calling it son-tough because it’s my POV. I’m sure there are similar “toughs” on daughters. But I’m also sure there are different “toughs” with each role.

Last night’s instance was staying in my mom’s bedroom for a while because she was too scared to sleep. I did this last week with my two year-old, as well. His monster was dinosaurs popping up in his room when he’s sleeping. My mother’s monster was surgery in the morning to remove her breast and some lymph nodes.

This morning, while my mother was in her prep-room some nursing students wheeled my father in to surprise her. That was another son-tough moment. He talked to her quietly for a while then grabbed the remote for the TV. My dad’s a bit of a TV-aholic, and this moment nearly made my head explode until I realized he was working to find the channel on the TV that shows a waterfall and soft music. He thought it would help to calm her. I had to leave the room.

But the day ended just as I like them to. Mom’s surgeon, who has been following our family’s recent plight, made certain that my mom was put on my father’s floor: two doors down from him, actually. By the time my brother and I got up to her Dad was already in there holding her hand.

We sat in silence for a bit, then my dad poked at Mom’s JP drain, which is collecting the fluids from inside her wound. “Well, at least when we get home we’ve got a new little sexy game to play,” he said. “You change my bag and I’ll change yours.”

I love days that end in laughter. It makes me son-happy.

Gross Indecency, the play I directed for TCR, is now in mid-run. Monopoly, the SPT’s Writers’ Room show —that I wrote for and was slated to perform in— went off without me and without a hitch last weekend.

It was good that I could stay in Des Moines for nearly a full week without feeling like I needed to be home —other than the sometimes-crippling desire to see my wife and kids.

During that near-week I saw my father get better, get worse, get better, then fall back again. I saw my mother get stronger, in minute increments, but it was positive movement. But the climax of the homecare segment of my week was the discussion with a home nurse about the probable need of assisted living for both parents, “at least in the medium-term.”

So, I was in a bit of a dark place.

My wife couldn’t find coverage for the kids on Friday, so I left my mother to my brother and went back home for a spell.

This was now the second time that I “Went back home for a spell.” And it was the second time that, when I hit a specific street —one that was two turns from my driveway— that the control of emotion became a real struggle. Both times, now, seeing my wife and kids really revealed the stress that forced emotional detachment can cause.

What I mean is this: When I walk into my father’s hospital room and he looks up at me like a scared four year-old and says, “Why am I still here?” I have to explain why without my eyes welling up and spilling over. When my mother looks up at me with pride because she was finally able to finish a 4 ounce cup of yogurt for lunch, I can’t beg her to eat more because she’s wasting away. I have to happily show joy at this accomplishment.

I had absolutely no idea how tiring, how draining that can be.

Well, I had a bright, floating moment of forgetfulness on Saturday. As I was home, I was able to attend the children’s auditions for my first full-length stageplay. By “my first full-length stageplay,” I mean that I wrote it. And that I got paid for it.

I just realized that this February is the most concentrated month of work I have had in years. Irony, right? Writers love irony.

Anyway, I actually heard kids saying my words, in hopes that they could memorize and say my words on stage in front of people. And some of those kids really got the lines. And those watching the auditions laughed at the right lines. It was a surprising, though brief, validation of the months I spent writing that thing.

For a moment I felt like I was floating above worry, fluffy, weightless, free of serious responsibility.

And just tonight the director told me she has cast the show. And, more importantly for me, rehearsals won’t begin until the second week of March.

That means I can focus on the important uneven ground in front of me for the next few weeks. Focus on the parents; tend their gardens, as it were.

And I guess that’s as it should be.

Anyway, I ran across this web site while sitting in the hospital the other day and it is simply genius.

It’s called “WTF Art History.” It is a thoroughly irreverent and tongue-in-cheek (sometimes your tongue but not your cheek (sometimes not that cheek either)) brief thought on some crazy and whacked piece of art. The writer is really quite insightful and  witty.

Here is a sampling:

WTF Art History: “Ovid is NOT for Kids”

Enjoy!

I’m guessing that most of you don’t know the craziness of last week.

My show, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde opened on Friday. That means that last week was the most intensive of the six-week rehearsal process. It was the week that supported the last tweaking, the minutia of acting and tech to try and create the most powerful production from the resources we have.

Sunday is spent for five or six hours working the lights and sound into the show. Monday and Tuesday usually involve tweaking the lights, sound, and costumes, as well as the really nit-picky actor stuff. Wednesday is hopefully a full and furious run with everything finally together. Thursday is preview for friends and sponsors. Friday is opening. It’s a pretty stressful week.

Tuesday afternoon I got a call that my father was in the hospital due to massive blood loss. The doctor said nearly half his volume, which I didn’t think was possible.

Well, my mother had just finished a massive series of pre-op chemo for breast cancer. I knew that it put the zap on her, but I really didn’t know how much until I got home. I thought I came home for Dad. But it turns out it was for my mother.

I hadn’t seen her since Christmas. In that time she has lost probably sixty pounds. She has to use a walker. She’s lost almost all her hair. She has been sleeping nearly sixteen hours a day. And, most disturbingly, she’s eating —maybe— a quarter cup of food three times a day.

It absolutely crushed me.

Early Wednesday morning we got the news that Dad had colon cancer. They had set the operation for Thursday.

At this point it became my personal aim to hold myself together. I had to be back in Cedar Rapids for Thursday night preview and opening. I had to be home, if for nothing else, to get my mother to eat.

It’s been a long time since I have been this much of a wreck.

But my brother stepped and took care of Mom Thursday and Friday nights. I came back Saturday morning and will stay until Tuesday.

I have a school matinee of the Gross Indecency on Wednesday that I have to run, so I need to be back in Cedar Rapids for that.

At this point, it looks like I’ll need to be back here Wednesday night at least. That’s the earliest that Dad can get out of hospital and back home.

I’m hoping to tackle the emotions of this event for Wednesday’s blog. It’s been something else. Certainly a mix that I did not imagine. And it’s that surprising mix that brought the floor up so swiftly to my chin.

But I’m feeling a bit more in control. And that’s saying something from where I was on Thursday. Now I’m at least up on all fours and breathing.

The boys are pretty active these days — not a lot of naps going on around here. So there is no writing during the day. The wife gets home between 4:30 and 5:30, we eat, then I head out to rehearsal. I get home around 10:20. I put the youngest to bed, which entails giving him a bottle in his darkened room until about 11:30. Then to bed. And around 7:30 or 8:00 the next morning it starts again.

I guess this is a long way of saying that I don’t think I’m going to get much writing out this week.

I really am sorry for this, but my sanity is probably dependent on it.

I suppose it did some good, as last week was one of the worst, most stressful weeks in recent memory. It really took me out.

I have clearly overextended my creative powers. I thought that getting the United Way sketch out of the way would free me up. But it didn’t. I kind of reached the end of the wick last week. And it didn’t help that my oldest son was home sick, I got myself a cold, and my mother ended up in hospital. There were other stressors, but those were the three that really seemed to zap me.

As it was, I not only did not have time to write, but I had really nothing to say and no energy with which to say that nothing.

Friday, in the depths of that wick’s end, my wife sent me a text message about my oldest throwing toys at my seven month-old, with the suggestion that we “reboot.”

Well, I’m all for that, but I’m much more interested in trading last week’s software for some happy upgrades.

So, huzzah to a new week!