Haunted Halls

Our sweet little Clementine was admitted to the hospital on Thursday, and we're still here. It's never easy to have a sick child, and this is no exception. She's had a very, very rough go (and so have her parents!), but I am filled with a sense of appreciation for the overall well being of my children. Compared to most of the other kids in this baby/toddler unit, Clemmie is quite healthy. This is just a little blip (we hope) in her otherwise very healthy life. Some of the parents here deal with some horrible things almost every single day.

One of the most difficult parts of our stay here is that she is at the same hospital downtown where my Dad spent almost two months immediately after his surgery, when things really went south for him. That was over three years ago now, but everywhere I go in this hospital I feel it so acutely: that pain and shock that came with the new horror we were facing. We spent so many hours each day in this building that it came to feel a bit like home. I can tell you what they serve in the cafeteria and where to find it. I can tell you how to navigate your way through the maze from the gift shop to the ICU.

When we first checked in, I refused to leave our room for anything. I didn't want to leave my baby's side, of course, but it didn't take me long to realize that there was more to it than that. Chris kept urging me to go downstairs and eat something (Clementine hasn't been able to eat, so we didn't want her to have to watch us eat in front of her), but I refused. I wanted to find a public restroom and Chris told me to leave the unit and look just outside the big double doors.

"I can't do that," I said.

"Why not?"

I thought for a minute. "I'll get locked out."

"You pick up the phone on the wall, say, 'Clementine,'" and they pop the doors right open for you.

Of course they do. How many millions of times did my mom, my brothers, and I lift a phone receiver from its cradle on the wall and say my Dad's name. Warden, we'd say, like magic sesame, and the door would click and we'd be free to pull the heavy handles and walk down to his room where he was either still comatose with blood draining out of tubes from his brain or discussing papal relations with a nurse because he was convinced he was the Pope. Like Clementine, he had a feeding tube cascading out his left nostril and taped to the side of his face.

I didn't understand yesterday why my mom hadn't shown any interest in coming to see Clementine. She was busy taking care of my other children and my dogs, sure, but she's the kind of grandmother who has to ripped away from a child in need. When I convinced her to drive Chloe and Elias up to see their sister last night, she said the minute she arrived: "I felt sick to my stomach the whole drive here." My mom, the pragmatist who never seems rattled by anything, who rarely has the same emotional reactions I do grief-wise, had stayed away for the same reason I haven't left this room. "When I walked past the gift shop," she told me, "I thought to myself: they've changed the color of the floor here."

You don't ever want to be in the position to notice a floor change color at a hospital unless you work in one.

My mom did venture out, down to the cafeteria to get me a sandwich. I felt guilty for sending her, until I looked up and saw through the open door a ghost walking down the sterile hallway. Dr. Chen, my dad's neurosurgeon, the man who had worked so hard to give my father extra time, who sat with him at three in the morning, who in his quiet way never made us feel stupid for our lists of questions. Every time he would walk into my dad's room, he'd say, "Hello, Mr. Minor. Do you know who I am?"

"Yes," my dad said once. "You're the guy who dug half the tomato plants too early from my garden."

Yes. Yes, he was. I debated whether or not to call to Dr. Chen, and I decided against it.

My baby is sick, and my dead father is everywhere.

At least I hope he is.