Lauren R.

Preston
March 26, 2017
The Power of Memoir

An Irony of Tragedies

I have to go now. My papa was sitting on a brown chair directly across from me. I

couldnt tell you where exactly we were other than the fact that the room was completely white;

the floors, the walls, everything.

Papa was looking just as humble as he always did. He was wearing his old blue jeans, a

red plaid jacket wrapped tightly around his large belly, and his fading brown shoes, all of which

he bought, proudly, at a garage sale where you can always get a wicked bargain as he always

said.

He stared at me seriously through his round glasses when he said, Take care of your

mom for me, petunia. Petunia was my nickname, but I didnt really understand why he was

asking me to care for my mother. Things started fading quickly. Dont leave! I pleaded as the

white room became a hazy blur and my papa disappeared from sight. In that moment, I was a

terrified and confused ten year old.

My eyes were filled with the stuff of sleep as I slowly opened my eyes to the bright

sunlight peering through the curtains from the window directly to my right. My small television

set that I forgot to turn off the night before was now showing a PBS educational program.

My mind was having a tough time adjusting to reality versus the dream world I had just

left behind. A part of me remained confused by what I had just seen. But a bigger part of me

contained the lurking feeling of disturbance. My papa was two towns away, perfectly capable of

contacting and taking care of my mom if need be. Why was he imploring me to care for my

mother when I was only ten years old?

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 I continued to ponder this for ten, onto thirty minutes when I snapped myself out of it. It

was just a dream, my inner self told me. I needed to get back to reality and not rely on my inner

consciousness.

And thats when the broken sobs registered with me coming from the next room over in

the living room. I didnt hear them at first between the mixture of PBS and being lost in my own

relentless thoughts of the dream world.

In that moment I was immediately awake and one, dreadful thought circulated my now

alert mind: something was wrong.

My answer came when I crossed my bedroom and opened the door into the open

windowed living room that was now filled with sunlight, perhaps shining so brightly in an

attempt to drown out the dry sobs coming from the blue, plaid couch underneath the window.

There was my mom, the old landline in one hand, the other hand clutching her stomach as

though preventing herself from throwing up.

I was so in shock at the scene before me that Mom answered the question that was

unfolding rapidly inside me.

My dad is dead she trailed off into more sobs.

Several mindsets and thoughts were racing each other in circles in my mind. In that

moment, my voice seemed to have lost itself from a void that had temporarily blocked its

functioning. I so badly wanted to cross the room and hug her, to tell her it would be okay. But I

knew that it wouldnt be okay. Not now. Not anytime soon. Because the peacekeeper, the man

everyone turned to for comfort, for the voice of reason, for a hug and a laugh, had been taken

from us, what seemed like only seconds after I had had a thought provoking conversation with

him in what now seemed impossible.

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 I wanted to be out of the room. I didnt hesitate to leave and within seconds I was back on

my bed, my door locked, head in my hands as I continued to hear the painful cries that were my

mom's.

This was one of the extremely rare times I witnessed my mom cry. She was usually the

strong one, the one who refused to expose vulnerabilities. And here she was, in her most

vulnerable position, and I was cowardly hiding from her and listening to her pain.

Her sobs gradually subsided as I continued to hold a grip on reality while being shaken

by the dream I had only hours ago witnessed and in that moment I strangely felt as though I was

the last one to speak with him and convey his well wishes, though my realistic mindset told me

that it wasnt true.

What seemed like decades later, all was quiet from the living room and the quiet was

abruptly broken by the ring of the doorbell. I tip toed back to my door and peered into the living

room just as my mom opened the front door to two women wearing blue scrubs positioned on

either side of a man in a wheelchair: my dad.

Only a few months prior to this in January, my mom and I were in the car driving home,

her driving faster than usual pushing the limits of her small, blue Saturn. I paid no mind to it at

the time, but the look of fear and anxiety on her face now comes to mind. Her reasoning, my dad

had an important doctors appointment at Saint Vincents Hospital and there was still no update

or response from him, hours later. I kept reassuring her that all would be fine and that there was

really nothing to worry about because, Dad is a bad communicator and probably just forgot to

call her back.

Still, she continued to speed home with ferocity. When we skidded into the driveway, she

didnt even wait for me to get out of the car before she booked it through the front door. I

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followed her, slowly, up the stairs and down the left hallway that led to my dads computer

office where, to my surprise though it seemed not to my moms, he was missing from.

Immediately, Mom picked up the phone and dialed Saint Vincents. She sounded more hurried

and anxiety-ridden than I had ever heard her before as she spoke harshly to desk girls and

demanded answers as to Dads whereabouts.

Ten minutes later, my dads voice was on the speaker phone, sounding hoarse and

exhausted. Without mentioning specifics, he said, They found something but Ill have to tell

you when you get here.

I heard nothing else of the conversation but with each word, Mom looked frailer.

You should have seen Mom flying home, Dad! I exclaimed. She was so worried about

you, and I told her everything was fine!

Mom didnt look or respond. She stared out the window behind us where it was black and

looked as though the world had been covered in a dark sheet. No stars were shining tonight.

Within minutes we were back in the Saturn, flying to Saint Vincents. We impressively

arrived there in only a half an hour. And still, Mom did not speak and all remained dark.

Entering the hospital was like walking through a popular tourist attraction site. The only

noticeable difference was the lack of smiling faces replaced by a sea of tears, cries of anger,

resentment, and fear, and faces that looked as though they had been permanently drained of

color. The hospital was elaborately designed to be nature-like, with artificial waterfalls and trees

as though to somehow comfort all who entered. I look back now and recognize the bullshit in it

all. Minutes away from this meant-to-be beautiful respite were dying people and people that

were suffering worse than death. Perhaps the designers thought theyd be doing everyone a favor

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but I just see it as a fictitious dream though at the time, I too was one of the sheep lured into its

magnificence like so many others.

I could literally feel the fear mixed in with the sweat of my moms hand as she grasped

mine tightly on our way to where my dad was.

We entered the shiny glass elevator; yet another false sense of magnificence in the sea of

suffering. The doors opened and we followed the signs pointing to where Dad would be. We

turned a corner and found ourselves in the middle of what I can now only compare to a post-

apocalyptic novel; something that anyone would deem to be false, a work of fiction. Yet here it

was before me, and my nave nature of the previous hours disappeared within seconds. I

suddenly was looking through the eyes of my mom as she stared out that dark window at home.

There was no light to be found and this time my mind and my eyes were working in unison.

The rooms must have been filled and occupied because various people who were clearly

sick and had the bad fortune of not having a room were laid out on cots in the hallway so that it

was barely possible to maneuver through the hallway to find my dad. The stench of cleanliness

that accompanied the dream of the entrance left us immediately to replaced stenches of vomit

and other sickly smells.

The grasp on my hand tightened as we made our way through the maze of the ill. A

couple minutes passed before we found my dad, nervous-looking and laying down on his own

cot.

For the first time that night, I remained silent and observant.

They found something. They havent told me what it is yet but they wouldnt let me go,

he quickly explained. They said its whats been causing my migraines and dizziness.

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 My mom didnt say anything. She held his hand, and we waited as we listened to

screaming patients under the assumption that nurses and doctors were trying to harm them. I

dont belong here! one man shouted again and again. Under normal conditions, I would have

found this funny. This was not funny to me now. This was the stuff of nightmares.

Hours later, we found ourselves in a private room with two doctors. On a light-board in

front of us was an image taken of the inside of my dads head so that all of his brain was visible.

But all of our eyes jumped immediately to the circular shadow that was obstructing his brain

from the right.

What is that? my dad asked.

That, Mr. Preston, is a tumor.

Silence.

But, its so big, my mom piped in, sounding as though she could barely speak.

Thats because its been growing for almost his entire life.

The tumor, as we later found out, was the size of a baseball and was touching the stem of

his brain: a difficult surgery to survive.

He was scheduled for surgery on Valentines Day which was only a few short weeks

away but so far in terms of what lay ahead of us; of him. We were told that there were a few

possibilities of the outcome to prepare for ahead of time: he could lose sight on his left side, he

could be deaf, or he could die.

None of those things happened. His speech became slurred and his walk became funny.

But he was alive, he had sight, and he could hear. But the battle was not won.

That night in the hospital when we first heard the news, the tides had shifted for my

family. Before the surgery had even occurred my dad knew one, unsettling fact: he was

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permanently disabled. He would have to retire at the age of 40. My mom would take on the

status of financially supporting the family.

As I watched my dad undergo physical therapy, and indirectly mental therapy, I felt as

though I had aged by 10 years. My babysitters switched off from the nurses and doctors at the

hospital to my nana and papa. The days of endless fun and no worries were over for me, for us,

forever.

I took comfort in those tension-filled months with my nana and papa who would drive me

to dance class and school and help me continue my life while it seemed as though everyone

elses were on the verge of ending. It was with my papa that I spent the days before his sudden

death. It was my papa who encouraged me to write in times of mental and physical stress so as

not to explode with undeclared emotions. It was my papa who promised me that I would one day

be Lauren Preston, bestselling fiction writer. It was with my papa that I searched for his devoted

dog and best friend, Taho, who had been lost all day. We found her under a blue tarp in the

backyard of his house, dead: a devastation to my papa like no other. It was my papa who gave

me the last five dollars from his wallet to have a decent lunch at school, five dollars I never

spent. These were the last five dollars he had before he was gone a day later; only five days after

finding his best friend dead. They werent separated for very long.

Papa died of a sudden heart attack from a fatal dose of diabetes medication. The product

was recalled due a cause of heart problems a few years later. A few years too late.

I think thats when things really started falling apart. The one everyone turned to for

comfort could no longer provide and everyone became the equivalent of chickens with their

heads cut off. All was lost. And it continues to be that way 11 years later.

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 My mind suddenly jumped back to reality as I saw my dad, unable to walk or move

without assistance, waiting for some sort of response from my mom. It was quite the ironic

tragedy and the 10 years I aged originally was added with another five.

My mom explained to my dad the news that had ruined our family reunion. His face fell

into his hands and tears streamed down my moms face. I think those past three months defined

strength and tragedy in a whole new light.

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