OPEN HEART
Prudence’ closest friend mowed his “lawn” today, which is to say he mowed grass that grows amidst various other plants where the lawn has long been hoped-for, dug and raked for, struggled for, fertilized for and never really found. The pilot of that little electric mower is anticipating his cardiologist’s scheduling a visit to Massachusetts General Hospital where a date will be set for open-heart surgery to correct near blockages of at least 4 arteries. That kind of operation is a big, damn deal and carries a lot of risk, having one’s heart exposed and worked-upon while machines handle the pumping and breathing the “lawn” mower would normally handle for himself.
In any event, since learning about those blockages, every significant task carries with it the possibility that it may be an experience that won’t be repeated. “Oh, no,” friends and loved-ones say, “bypass surgery is routine, now. They do them all the time. So-and-so had it and he / she is doing great.” Probably, but contemplating one’s chest prized open disallows such simple reassurances and even remarkable records of success don’t set worries, or, better, reflections aside.
More than 76 years of good health can lull a person into planning out what a good length of life should be. First he would look at what his own father’s age got to be despite setbacks and bad habits, and then add on a number of years because of being more careful than the old man was, and more active and more something or other than one’s ancestor, and therefore entitled to a few more years. But no amount of calculation will actually place the length of one’s life into one’s own control. There’s no bargaining. Who do you bargain with?
So, the not-so-old guy begins thinking about other actions, responsibilities, habits, projects unfinished and kisses not bestowed or received, that may be the result of the probable operation. It’s automatic, and he has to decide a thousand decisions.
Am I satisfied with what I’ll leave for people to remember? That’s a hard decision. Maybe if I sell an extraordinary number of raffle tickets for the next drawing… maybe they’ll remember me better. “Yeah, we’re going to miss the old dude: he sold a lot of raffle tickets.”
Will I leave my wife feeling glad she gave her life to me, the guy who doesn’t take vacations, instead of that other kid she grew up with? Will she wish she had done something more exciting with her loyalty? “Yes, I loved him, but he was such a stick-in-the-mud, always doing some work or project or helping his Club. It was like pulling teeth to get him to take a vacation.” Hard to decide if I am satisfied with how I was as a husband and companion. But it’s too late to change it, if things go South.
Still, the neighbor down the street has a college buddy who’s 85 now and he had six bypasses 20 years ago and he’s still walking 3 miles a day and doing great. So, nothing to worry about, it’s a routine procedure, now. Maybe.
Not-so-old guy has always said he “wants to die healthy,” but it’s hard to figure what that really means anymore. The line always got a chuckle. But the concept was that he’d do whatever he felt he needed to do until all the home projects were done, new bathroom installed and the house painted, business sold, great-grandchild born somehow (the usual way, one hopes), and then keel over with his second heart attack. Such plans are mere wisps of cloud.
Did I sell enough copy machines? Obviously the answer is no, and always would be; can’t sell too many in that business. But, the ones I did enabled a reasonable life, kids through college and the ability to help people through Exchange and otherwise. We haven’t wanted for anything important but we’ve never had a lot of money, either.
Our son and daughter are wonderful, handsome and beautiful in turn, and very strong where it counts. Each created two wonderful children of their own about whom not enough good can be said. I envy them their long futures and their brains and good looks, but not necessarily the state of the United States and the world, the way my generation is leaving them. Freedom teeters on a knife-edge and many will die when it is next attacked. At least these grandchildren have their heads on straight.
The man who is starting to count his years in limited terms has been fortunate in a thousand ways, with one of the greatest having been alive to know granddaughter, Allison Paige Hawkes, daughter’s daughter and guiding light for so many of us and many dozens of others we never got to know – or meet – until her funeral. Her beauty and strength were boundless as she resisted the grasp of cancers for 20 years. What a treat it seems to me to have known her and been loved by her. She didn’t waste a minute that was granted. Me, I’ve wasted a lot of them, but there’s no regaining even one; an old person hopes that he did enough in the minutes he didn’t waste.
A lot of minutes have been spent on home projects in, literally, every room in the house. Some were big projects, like making one room out of two and leveling the ceiling across the whole master bedroom space, and like moving the kitchen into the dining room and making the kitchen into the dining room with new hot water heat, new ceiling, new French doors at the other end of the living room, like two new 24” bay windows, new picture windows in the east walls of the living room and dining room, lots of plumbing and electrical work, complete renovations of the other two bedrooms, and like new front steps and entry-way with sidelights, pillars, curved ceiling and piece-made wooden fan over the front door, new back steps, ramp and back and cellar doors, plus a whole new kitchen door entry off of a new brick patio, recently cut in half with a new 64-pounds-each landscape-block outer wall. Then there is the 8 x 10 shed and a whole lot of inlaid brick walks and aprons and stone covered, brick-outlined sections of the yard. Very early on, the main bathroom upstairs was expanded as the master bedroom was created, by eliminating a linen closet and an original small bedroom closet. Lots of plumbing and carpentry, there. There were many new windows the old guy replaced when much younger. There’s also a built-in bed platform with drawers underneath, and an under-window bureau and a built-in mirror with make-up lights in the, now, 3rd bedroom.
Unfortunately, most of it is 20 to 40 years old and needs major work the old guy can’t do, particularly as suddenly restrictive heart problems are accommodated. Now that the heart has been examined several ways, old man’s wife doesn’t want him to even tie his shoes too tightly.
More decisions will have to include how a grandson might help complete the brick-defined terraces in front of the house, where the steep drop of the yard has thwarted desires for decades. Blessed with lots of bricks from the shortened patio (see 64-pound landscape blocks, above) it makes perfect sense to use them to solve another problem, doesn’t it? Not even a little? So far the brick sculpture-terrace-what-the-Hell-is-he- building-there, looks potentially good, except there’s a huge pile of dirt on the walk near the house, which ultimately must be screened for agricultural purposes on the terraces and elsewhere. Now it’s grandson work. Tugs at the heart, don’t you know.
How many things can be set aright before the big cut? That’s another decision, linked to how much can the didn’t-realize-he-was-getting-old-so-quickly-guy get away with? Number-one son and his number-one son already got roped into moving the adjustable bed into old guy’s office / TV room, and moving other stuff the helpless old bastard shouldn’t try to do. Huh! Well, okay; can’t move it back himself, anyway. There are bushes to be clipped, again… can he get away with that?
But underlying every surface concern are the profound ones. How many normal actions have the potential of being the last time they’ll be done? Driving to the office? Selling a copier? Helping customers? Or, more importantly, kissing beloved wife or painting woodwork; or getting windows replaced or hallway floor redone. What about this, or that or the other thing that comes down to fixing up the house for the next owner? Will he get to lay out the Field of Honor again, straightening the flags when they sag from vertical? What about having lunch with Will Vercoe, one of the world’s best people, or having lunch with Dennis Galvin and Jay Gaffney, two more of the world’s best people, or bantering with Frank Allen, the world’s best person, a man without whom the old guy’s life would have been far less fulfilling or useful. The best.
Or, everything will be so wonderfully wonderful after the operation that we’ll all be joking around about why there was any worry at all. They do this all the time.
Don’t you just love hyphens?