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This morning, just a few minutes ago, my dad walks from his room and into the hallway. I hear him gasp, land against the wall and start making these half gasping, half moaning noises as he limps his way to the kitchen. I throw my computer down on my bed and run out into the kitchen.
Now, I know my dad isn't healthy. He worked for years at a factory, destroying his body (broken leg, useless knee, misplaced hips, bad back), smoked so much that his lungs are terrible and he can barely breathe (still hasn't quit, despite what my mom thinks) and he and my mom are always making these little comments about what's going to happen when he's gone, like he won't be here much longer. And ever since my uncle died suddenly from a heart attack a few years ago (he had the same job my dad did), one of my worst fears is that, like my cousins Christina, I might not have a dad to walk me down the aisle when I get married.
So here I am, scared out of my mind in the kitchen, and my dad is sitting in the kitchen chair, moaning about his toe. He tripped over the dog and hurt it, you see. Think's it's broken. And he's moaning about how he wish's he could die.
"I wish I could die," he says. "Leave this world. I'm sick of it and everything in it."
I'm a little pissed off. Here I am, completely freaked out and worried something serious has happened, and he's talking about wanting to die.
He goes into the family room, and I get a baggie with ice. I practically throw it in his lap and then stand behind the couch, trying to calm down. ("God has turned his back on me, I know it," moans my dad.) Out of the corner of my eye I see something brown on the floor. I look over, and there it is: a robin, not even full grown, that the cat dragged in.
It's still breathing.
It's leg keeeps twitching, and it's whole body moves with the breaths, like it's gasping for them, like it took everything it had in it to keep breathing, keep living.
As I stand over it I remember a poem I heard from a movie once:
"I never saw a wild thing feeling sorry for itself
A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry from itself."
It seems appropriate.
Now, I know my dad isn't healthy. He worked for years at a factory, destroying his body (broken leg, useless knee, misplaced hips, bad back), smoked so much that his lungs are terrible and he can barely breathe (still hasn't quit, despite what my mom thinks) and he and my mom are always making these little comments about what's going to happen when he's gone, like he won't be here much longer. And ever since my uncle died suddenly from a heart attack a few years ago (he had the same job my dad did), one of my worst fears is that, like my cousins Christina, I might not have a dad to walk me down the aisle when I get married.
So here I am, scared out of my mind in the kitchen, and my dad is sitting in the kitchen chair, moaning about his toe. He tripped over the dog and hurt it, you see. Think's it's broken. And he's moaning about how he wish's he could die.
"I wish I could die," he says. "Leave this world. I'm sick of it and everything in it."
I'm a little pissed off. Here I am, completely freaked out and worried something serious has happened, and he's talking about wanting to die.
He goes into the family room, and I get a baggie with ice. I practically throw it in his lap and then stand behind the couch, trying to calm down. ("God has turned his back on me, I know it," moans my dad.) Out of the corner of my eye I see something brown on the floor. I look over, and there it is: a robin, not even full grown, that the cat dragged in.
It's still breathing.
It's leg keeeps twitching, and it's whole body moves with the breaths, like it's gasping for them, like it took everything it had in it to keep breathing, keep living.
As I stand over it I remember a poem I heard from a movie once:
"I never saw a wild thing feeling sorry for itself
A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry from itself."
It seems appropriate.
