Date: October 14, 1982
Age: 5
Now that we are living in Florida, I have started your postcard collection again. What could be better for starters than a card from Miami? You can add your new cards to the ones you have in Delaware.
Love, Daddy
When I was five, my father went on sabbatical and moved my mother and me to Miami. Although we only lived there for a year, we visited many times, usually multiple times a year, until I was seventeen and my parents split up. Since then--nearly fifteen years ago--I have only been to Miami three times. Tomorrow, I head down again.
H says my father will not be out of the hospital by tomorrow, but perhaps he will get to return home before my brothers and I depart on Wednesday. So, we will be going straight to the the hospital after the three of us arrive at the airport tomorrow afternoon.
There's a certain awkwardness when visiting someone in a hospital--hell, even being visited in the hospital when you're a patient yourself. All told, I spent two months of 2007 in the hospital, and there were very few visitors I felt truly comfortable around. I vacillated between being grateful for visitors and their attention and just wanting to be left alone to sleep, feel sorry for myself, or watch Top Chef. Having visitors means you feel obligated to make conversation. While I was in the hospital, it was only in my mother's presence did I feel comfortable enough to "switch off." I'd remain silent, watch TV, or try to sleep. She read a lot of books that year.
Fortunately, only one visitor made me feel bad about being sick (my ex-boyfriend), but still, often in front of the others, I didn't want to be a bad hostess. While I respectfully asked them to keep away when I wasn't up for visitors, in their presence I didn't want them to see me at my worst (even if they inevitably did). I think I sometimes exhausted myself with social visits. Oftentimes I was thrilled to see them and depended on their presence to keep my mind off of reality. Other times, conversation just felt forced.
One of those people with whom conversation felt most forced was my dad. He's not a big talker, and that's probably something I've inherited from him. I've been trying to come up with conversation pieces for tomorrow and the rest of our visits over the next three days. What's there to tell? He hasn't seen the tattoo on my back, so there's something. He liked my first one. He doesn't know I've been accepted (or even that I applied) to MFA programs; perhaps from his extensive travels he can glean some insight into the one of the locations that may be my home for the next two years.
There's always hospital talk--maybe we can relate that way? "I know how much intravenous potassium my veins can handle without it burning; how's that for you, dad? Do they check your vitals every four hours? That's a bitch when it happens in the middle of the night, isn't it? How's the hospital food? When I was in your shoes (or hospital bed), I was on a steady diet of chicken broth and jello--but always green or yellow, never the red stuff. That's because the red stuff looks like blood if they're checking out your insides. What's your favorite jello flavor?"
The first time my dad visited me in the hospital, he was with my brothers. Between the four of us, we managed to keep the conversation going. Hopefully that's how it will be tomorrow, and that our dad won't hesitate to tell us to leave when he wants to switch off.
H says my father will not be out of the hospital by tomorrow, but perhaps he will get to return home before my brothers and I depart on Wednesday. So, we will be going straight to the the hospital after the three of us arrive at the airport tomorrow afternoon.
There's a certain awkwardness when visiting someone in a hospital--hell, even being visited in the hospital when you're a patient yourself. All told, I spent two months of 2007 in the hospital, and there were very few visitors I felt truly comfortable around. I vacillated between being grateful for visitors and their attention and just wanting to be left alone to sleep, feel sorry for myself, or watch Top Chef. Having visitors means you feel obligated to make conversation. While I was in the hospital, it was only in my mother's presence did I feel comfortable enough to "switch off." I'd remain silent, watch TV, or try to sleep. She read a lot of books that year.
Fortunately, only one visitor made me feel bad about being sick (my ex-boyfriend), but still, often in front of the others, I didn't want to be a bad hostess. While I respectfully asked them to keep away when I wasn't up for visitors, in their presence I didn't want them to see me at my worst (even if they inevitably did). I think I sometimes exhausted myself with social visits. Oftentimes I was thrilled to see them and depended on their presence to keep my mind off of reality. Other times, conversation just felt forced.
One of those people with whom conversation felt most forced was my dad. He's not a big talker, and that's probably something I've inherited from him. I've been trying to come up with conversation pieces for tomorrow and the rest of our visits over the next three days. What's there to tell? He hasn't seen the tattoo on my back, so there's something. He liked my first one. He doesn't know I've been accepted (or even that I applied) to MFA programs; perhaps from his extensive travels he can glean some insight into the one of the locations that may be my home for the next two years.
There's always hospital talk--maybe we can relate that way? "I know how much intravenous potassium my veins can handle without it burning; how's that for you, dad? Do they check your vitals every four hours? That's a bitch when it happens in the middle of the night, isn't it? How's the hospital food? When I was in your shoes (or hospital bed), I was on a steady diet of chicken broth and jello--but always green or yellow, never the red stuff. That's because the red stuff looks like blood if they're checking out your insides. What's your favorite jello flavor?"
The first time my dad visited me in the hospital, he was with my brothers. Between the four of us, we managed to keep the conversation going. Hopefully that's how it will be tomorrow, and that our dad won't hesitate to tell us to leave when he wants to switch off.
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