Introspection

I never really cried in the hospital. Stress never overtook me - I don't think I had the strength up until now for much of that. I took one day at a time, tried to act chipper for my friends when they showed up, and generally treated the hospital staff like I would roommates. None of this really got to me.

I worried, but hey, that's a byproduct of anything involving near-death. So give me a break on that front.

I don't cry a lot, I don't cry for long, and I get misty at weird things - not weddings or movies or the like, but small things that touch me at strange moments that others around me are standing clear-eyed and stolid. Maybe an existential crisis of infinitely small proportions, or thoughts that touch a strange point in my memory. Anyway.

Now we backtrack slightly.


For the three-plus hours that Vanessa and my mom waited for me to emerge from surgery, they sat in a waiting room, with my bags, in exodus from my room in hematology in order for the hospital to sally forth another patient.

My mother was approached by a man named Gary Garrison. Gary is a part of the "Artists on the Ward" program, a group of volunteers who bring paint, prose, poetry and song to the hospital for patients. I'd heard of the program on posters in the halls, and seen paintings signed with the logo, but had never given it a second thought.

He sat down and introduced himself. He asked some questions.

"So, what are you here for?"

My mother explained in cliff notes my condition and where I currently was.

"What is your son like?"

Day job. Family. Musician. With a day job. New kid. Mortgage.

"So how has your day been?"

She began to expound her stress.

"No. How was your day? From the start. What did you see this morning? What did you notice?"

She told him that she had gone out to her van early in the morning to go to the hospital, when the sun was just rising. There had been small drops of ice scattered on the windshield from freezing rain. And when she thought they would defrost, they didn't, and she drove through a haze of reflections and twinkling headlights, unable to remove the ice.

What lead her to tell him this, I'm not sure.

He thought about it, pulled out a notepad, and began to write. He wrote in silence for about fifteen minutes. Then he handed the page to my mother.


Back to urology.

It's my second day out of surgery. My family has come to visit, but I'm too tired to entertain them. They take their cue and leave. Just my mother is there in the room with me.

"Here. This guy sat down next to me in the waiting room when you were in surgery. He writes poems. He wrote me this. It's pretty cool, we just talked about you for a while and he wrote it in like, less than a half hour."

She gives me the page. I sit in my bed, still exhausted from the effort of eating.

I never really liked poetry, and even after studying and appreciating some in school, I'm kind of suspicious. My teacher always said that good poetry was a dangerous medium in literature because it bypasses logic and intellectualism and goes straight for the emotional human core. But I'd never really felt that about any poetry. Presently, I brace myself for bad poetry, as is my instinct.

I read the page.




The Singer
by Gary Garrison

Anxious, bright, angular sunrise
glowing gold street poles
random rainbow crystals
scattered across the windshield
Bending morning light into wondering
if he'll be well enough
for the splenectomy
if that rebel organ is the cause
of his blood destroying itself
if he'll be strong enough
to lift his guitar and his voice
to give him one good reason
to turn right back around
to raise his own son
to mentor his own grandchildren
to keep writing songs until he's 90.



I put down the page. I pause a half second and glance around the room, at the morphine, at the sink, the IV pole, my spent breakfast tray.

I cry.

Every ounce of Prednisone, Imovane, Ativan, Benadryl, Tylenol, Colace, Gravol, Heparin, Pantaloc, antibiotics. Every shot of every drug they pumped into me to stop the spleen, help my immune system, kill my immune system , counteract that drug, keep me alive, force my body into obeying like a marionette...

...comes pouring out of my eyes.

It burns like hell.

Chemicals running down my face as I see Liam. As I see Vanessa. As I see every friend who offered me their blood. As I see my job, my house with the stupid slanted floor. A haze of molten frustration, despair and hate at a body I can't understand and couldn't help to save my life.

It floods out. Spent.

I guess Gary did his job.