Home Is Burning (20 page)

There was another photo of my grandma and my dad hanging out at my grandma's house on Camano Island in northern Washington. It was the house where my grandma had grown up, but it had turned into a vacation home later in life. My dad must have been in his teens then, and my grandma in her forties. Every summer, my grandma would take her kids up there. They'd read, they'd swim, they'd lie out in the sun, they'd pick blackberries. My dad and his brother Jack would stay up late talking on the front porch, where they also slept. My dad had his first kiss along Camano's rocky shores with one of the neighbor girls he had a crush on. It was a special place for him.

I found a picture of my parents' wedding. It was back when they weren't terminally ill. They looked like a couple ready to take on the world. There's nothing more beautiful than youth—the feeling that anything is possible, that your life is an exciting mystery full of hope. Here these two were, having just teamed up, a look of invincibility in their eyes.

I found another picture of my grandma and dad, now much older, sitting with Chelsea on the back porch of the Camano house. My dad was now a man—a proud father—trying to pass along his love for his favorite childhood place to his daughter. He had always been our compass, directing us through life.

Another picture featured my dad as he crossed the finish line of the Salt Lake Marathon, his arms triumphantly raised—a healthy and capable athlete, but also a man who had mastered his hobby.

All the pictures were like a quick tour of my dad's journey through childhood, into adulthood, into parenthood, and then into midlife. I knew there was never going to be a picture of him in old age. His life was going to be cut short. There would never be a photo of him holding a grandchild, or one of him buying a home in a retirement community. But it helped to know that he had lived a very full life, achieving all these milestones with a smile on his face. It made the Lou Gehrig's disease seem slightly less tragic.

Seeing all the pictures of the good times my dad had had and knowing there would be no pictures of good times ahead made me depressed. Living in the past makes you sad; looking to the future makes you happy. It always seemed to me that depressed people are depressed because they can't move on from the past. Happy people are happy because they're excited about something in the future. I needed to stop this trip down memory lane, live in the now, have some fucking fun. So I walked out of my grandma's bedroom and straight to the communication device. I decided that I'd show everyone the ECO-14 to lighten the mood. After everyone refilled their glasses, I gathered them around and hit a few of the buttons.

“If you loved me, you would put three shots of gin into my feeding tube,” the ECO said. Everyone laughed and raised their drinks. Heavy drinkers love jokes about drinking alcohol. Makes them feel like it's okay to drink so much.

“Please give me five dollars. I have Lou Gehrig's disease and you can still do all the things you love,” the ECO joked. Everyone laughed again. It was as though the communication device was doing stand-up comedy—and killing. Maybe I should take this thing to some open mics. Even my grandma was chuckling. Maybe the ECO's jokes would help my grandma and me quickly become the best friends in the world, and make up for all the lost moments we had missed out on over the years.

Just then, my uncle Jack noticed the icon with the penis on it. “What's that one do?” asked my uncle.

“Oh, don't worry about that one,” I said as I grabbed for the device. But it was too late. My uncle hit it.

“Boy, I could use a blow job,” said the ECO.

Everyone was stunned to silence. They all lifted their drinks for a big sip. “Oh, my,” my disappointed, dying grandma said. Guess blow job jokes aren't what your rich grandma wants to hear on her deathbed. Guess I wasn't going to turn around our relationship. Oh, well. You can't be close with everyone you meet in this life. Guess you should just appreciate and cherish the people you are close with. I missed my mom and my sisters. At least they thought this was funny. I hit the blow job button again. “Boy, I could use a blow job.” Nothing.

*   *   *

My dad woke from his nap and I sat him down next to his mom again. They didn't say much. It was getting late and we still had to get back home, as I'd promised my mom that we'd have our dad back alive by bedtime. I gave my dad that we-better-get-going look. He got teary eyed.

“Well, Mom, I've got to go, but keep on fighting,” he said. “Maybe I'll see you again.”

“You keep on fighting, too, Bobby. I love you very, very, very much,” she said.

“I'm glad you were my mom,” he said.

“I'm glad you were my son,” she said.

They both cried and held hands for a couple more minutes, taking in their last moments together, wishing they were both young and healthy again, sitting on the porch at their house on Camano Island back when life had seemed endless. Everyone else cried, too. No mother wants to see her son die. Shit, maybe that's why she wanted to die so bad. Maybe she couldn't bear the thought of watching her little Bobby go before her.

After all the tears were dried, they gave their last smiles to each other. I helped my dad up. We walked to the car with the ECO-14 tucked beneath my arm.

“Maybe I'll see her again,” he said, looking back at the house and tearing up.

“Yeah, well, maybe. Maybe not. Miracles can happen, even if they've never happened to us,” I said.

Greg and I put my dad in the car. I popped some sunflower seeds into my mouth and took one last look at my grandma's house. “You know what would be a true miracle? If you didn't shit your pants on the drive home.”

“Let's not ask for too much,” he said, smiling at last.

My grandma passed away one week later.

 

THE AMBULANCE, BRO

It started as a typical Friday in our household. I had been drinking more lately and having no sex, so I woke up hungover with a boner. Everything smelled of cat piss. My dad still had Lou Gehrig's disease. My mom still had cancer and was always sleeping—waking only to down yogurts and ask silly questions like “Do you want dinner?” at eleven in the morning. My sisters were MIA. Greg was planning on either running on the treadmill or riding the stationary bike between shifts of Daddy Duty. The usual shit.

My dad was supposed to have a tracheotomy and go on a respirator a few days earlier, but we canceled the surgery because my grandma's funeral had been the weekend before. My dad just wasn't feeling up to it, so we pushed it back one week. It had been a big fight. My mom insisted that my dad get the surgery as soon as possible and seemed convinced that he was going to die if he didn't. But he didn't want to do it yet. It was a big decision. Being on the respirator meant that he'd be hooked to a breathing machine for the rest of his life. It meant that he'd probably lose his voice. It meant that he would basically be immobile. It also meant that he'd need twenty-four-hour, around-the-clock care. He thought he could hold off a little longer.

We had all just returned from the funeral, where my siblings and I all cried a lot—not necessarily because we'd lost our grandma, but because of the whole shitty situation. We'd take any chance we got to cry these days. Greg cried for an hour straight—one of those really gross cries where you have snot and tears all over your face. It got so bad that an uncle told him to get his shit together. I said, “Wow, Greg, I didn't know you loved Grandma Barbie so much.”

“I didn't,” he said. “I'm crying for Dad. Look at the poor bastard.” I looked at the poor bastard staring at a photo of himself and his mom when he was a teenager, when times were happier, when life was bright. Our dad was too skinny for his suit. It looked like he was a young kid playing dress-up. He was really wearing down. He didn't stand a chance against this fucking disease. Poor guy.

My mom had a slight smirk on her face throughout the funeral, proud of herself for outliving the Queen B. Since she was supposed to die years ago from the cancer, anytime she lasted longer than someone she didn't like, she saw it as a giant victory.

With the canceled surgery, the day was shaping up to be chill and relaxing compared to what it could have been had the trach operation gone down. The weekend was approaching—the time when young adults celebrate their youth by consuming alcohol and fantasizing about connecting genitals with strangers. I wanted to focus primarily on the “consuming of alcohol” part, since I still had a girlfriend I loved, even though she wouldn't visit me out in Salt Lake. I understood why she didn't want to come. Shit was depressing. I didn't want to be here either. Why should I subject anyone else to this?

My social life since moving home had been basically nonexistent. I was spending all my time taking care of my family's bullshit. I figured it was why I was home—that I hadn't come back to Utah to fuck around and party with pals, like all the times before. But I was beginning to realize that I needed the occasional break to protect my sanity.

I'd started watching football and drinking beers with my friends Henry, Aria, Mike, Tigg, and Bob. I'd also been hanging out with my party animal friend Dominic. Dom has a dead dad, so we loved getting drunk and talking about how unfair life could be. I found I could form an instant bond with anyone who had lost a parent. We were suddenly in a weird, fucked-up club. Dom and I called it the Dead Dad Club, though I wasn't officially a member since mine was still hanging on. I actually liked telling old friends why I was home. In high school, I had a reputation for being an asshole—for a stretch my nickname was Dickhead Dan. I wasn't a full-on bully, but I was prone to saying really blunt and offensive things. Now that I was back taking care of my dying parents, people started to treat me like I was a tragic figure with a heart of gold, instead of a dickhead. I loved feeling like a good person for once. Maybe I was losing my dad, but I was gaining a heart.

Everything was running as smoothly as it could, so it was looking like I could sneak away from home for a little bit. I called Dom. Plans were made. We would be going out on the town. Alcohol would be consumed. Fun times would be had.

I laid my dad down for an afternoon nap next to my mom, who had fallen asleep with a yogurt in one hand and a spoon in the other. I showered and found a nice shirt to wear—one that gave my arms the freedom to easily lift drinks to my mouth. I sprayed myself with cologne, trying to hide the smell of dying parents and cat piss. I was all ready for a great night. I'd start with a bit of wine and finish with a flurry of gin and tonics and maybe a few late-night beers out on the gazebo. Perfect.

As I was about to pour myself a glass of wine, my dad rang his bell. I ran upstairs, pulled him up from his nap, and removed his BiPAP mask.

“I can't breathe,” gasped my dad.

“Okay, well, I'm going to have a glass of wine. Ring if you need anything else,” I joked. Him struggling to breathe wasn't out of the ordinary, so I figured everything was normal.

“DJ, please,” he managed. I took a closer look at him. He was for real. He didn't look good at all. He was white as a Mormon. He was struggling. At a recent doctor's appointment, we were told that his lung capacity was down to 18 percent, meaning he needed to take five breaths of air to get a normal breath. At this point, the five-breaths-for-every-one was more like seven. He looked like he was about to die. I stopped dicking around and got serious.

“Shit, do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked.

He didn't answer. He was too focused on breathing. I rushed over to my mom and tried to jostle the yogurt in her hand loose—a process that wakes her up 98 percent of the time. She jumped from the bed with energy I hadn't seen out of her in years.

“Don't touch my fucking yogurt,” she said, her spoon held like a pistol. She looked more like John Wayne than a cancer patient.

“Dad isn't breathing well. What should we do?” I asked the cancer patient. She walked over to my dad.

“Bob, are you okay?” she asked. No answer. He could only focus on his breathing, with a look of absolute fear in his eyes.

“Fucking answer me. Just because you have Lou Gehrig's disease doesn't mean you can act like an asshole,” she said.

“No, not okay,” he managed, the rate of the breathing intensifying.

“Mom, call Dr. Bromberg and figure out what we should do,” I said. I hooked my dad back onto the BiPAP, sure that if we didn't do something immediately, he would die.

My mom spoke. “I fucking told you assholes that we should have done the surgery on Tuesday, but no one takes the cancer patient seriously.” She closed her eyes. “I fucking told you.”

“Mom, call Bromberg. Dad can't breathe. Jesus Christ,” I yelled back.

She opened her eyes, picked up the phone, and slowly dialed the number. I heard her hang up the phone a couple of times, probably because she misdialed or something. She finally held the receiver to her ear.

“Hi, we're trying to get hold of Dr. Bromberg. This is Bob,” said my mom. There was a pause as the receptionist said something. My mom closed her eyes. It looked like she was about to fall asleep. It didn't look like she was in the middle of an emergency. “No, this is Debi, his wife. Did I say it was Bob?” my mom laughed. There was another pause as the receptionist said something. “Okay, so he's in Africa? What part?”

This was getting nowhere, so I snatched the phone away from my mom. “Mom, give me the phone. What part of Africa? Are you fucking kidding me? Like that matters.”

“Hello this is Robert's son, Daniel. My father is having a lot of trouble breathing and may need to go in for an emergency tracheotomy. What should we do?” I asked.

“Well, just call 911 and they'll take him up to the hospital,” she said.

“Okay. That makes sense … Is Dr. Bromberg really in Africa or was that my mom's chemo talking?” I asked.