My dad

At noon today I got a call saying that my dad was in the hospital, in serious condition. After calling Bear and anyone else I could think of, I left the office and headed out. Basically, the chemo he was taking to kill the multiple myeloma also killed off his white blood cells, and when he got a tooth infection, his body just didn't have anything to fight it off with.

And so he is laying there, on a ventilator, with tubes and wires and beeping machines everywhere. My sister and her husband hopped the first flight up from the south, where they now live, and actually made it to the hospital in time for the evening visiting hour.

It's one of the oddest things for me to deal with - the fact that some woman who is not my mother has say over what happens to my dad, even though my sister and I are blood related to him. I know my dad would not want to be kept alive on these machines, with people sitting around staring at him. But I feel so shut out of the loop. I'm not even the second in the chain of command - my dad's brother is. I am just trying to focus on how glad I am that my sister was able to get here in time to see him, and for him to see her, before the end.

I feel as if I have been awake for years. I will go to bed tonight knowing my cell phone will most likely wake me up with the news that Dad has moved on to the next world. Part of me wishes that call would never come, part of me wishes it already had.

The person I think I feel worst for is my mother. She spent more than 25 years of her life with my dad, and still loves him to this day, even though they divorced when I was 24. And she can't be at his bedside as he leaves, because he married someone else. It just doesn't seem right. It never really has seemed right.

When the hospital staff kicked us out of his room this afternoon to change his bed and do hospital stuff, we went down to the cafeteria to grab a snack. I had a bottle of Snapple tea, and when I opened it, I noticed words printed on the inside of the lid. They said "Mosquitoes are attracted to people who have just eaten bananas."

I sat there and realized that for the rest of my life, when I think of this day, I will remember that stupid sentence from the lid of a Snapple bottle.

Life is just ridiculous sometimes.