What a Week
The first week of December was crazy-ass. That week my dad had a heart attack. That week my cat went missing. That week my best friend from college got a call that a newborn baby boy needed a mamma and a papa. That week my microwave broke.
How did I cope with these things?
Not too well. I had two hefty glasses of wine every night, I ate chocolate (a lot). I felt angry with everybody: angry with my sister for having boundaries, my mother for being fragile, my children for being loud and laughing at fart jokes, my husband for his work schedule, angry with the width of my upper arms.
I also felt relief. Before all this happened, I’d been non-stop navel-gazing, running around on a little hamster wheel of my own devising. I had conversations with friends about my “purpose,” my stuck-ness, my this and my that.
I looked at mountain houses in Lake arrowhead and puppies online. One night after several glasses of wine and time spent ogling corgi puppies, I told my husband, Scott, I wanted another dog. He said “not right now.” I asked him what his ideal pet situation was. He said “one cat less.” We have two cats. I didn’t find that funny.
Then came the phone call that dad was sick, shaking violently, vomiting and having diarrhea. Mom headed to the ER. I left my boys in front of the TV and sped to meet them. My sister joined us there. Dad was having a heart attack. The ER team got him on an IV and drugged up. We watched the heart monitor with wild eyes, praying things would even out. Thank god, they did. At 3 am dad was transferred to Keck hospital in an ambulance. He spent the next three days waiting to have bypass surgery.
Early Saturday evening, after spending two sleepless nights at the hospital, I crawled into my own bed. I heard Scott say to Hana, my sweet cream-colored rag doll cat “want to go out Hana?” She’s indoor-outdoor, she was that way when we adopted her and her kitten, Tiki.
That night Hana didn’t come back. Or the next morning, or the next evening. In my sleep-deprived, worried-about-dad stupor, I didn’t give her disappearance too much thought. I was her person, her anchor in our home. I figured my schedule had thrown her off. Midway through the second day I started to freak out. The coyotes in our neighborhood are bad. Cats go missing all the time.
As my fears mounted, so did my wine and chocolate intake. I prayed for dad while I posted on social media: had anyone seen my cat? Tiki, Hana’s kitten, trawled our hallways, crying for her mamma morning and night.
In a small, sterile office, Dr. Kankui described bypass surgery to my mother, my sister and me as a ballet; a beautiful dance of fingers and veins, arteries and blood.
The next morning, as my dad’s sternum was cut open and his heart worked on, my friends made signs with Hana’s picture on it and posted them all over town.
The operation went smoothly. That evening I sat next to dad as he recovered in the ICU. He was discombobulated; in pain. I did what I could to make him more comfortable.
My friend Jules, in Florida, my best friend from college, called me the next morning. I was home, grabbing things to take to the hospital. She was crying. “Megan, there’s a baby boy, the birth mom’s considering us! We’re going to meet him.” She and her husband had been trying for years, first to have their own baby, then to adopt. Was it possible that it would be a happy ending with this baby boy?
Later that day, after a long stint at my dad’s side, I stood in my kitchen. My home was calm, quiet, so different from the noise and bustle of the ICU. I went to heat up a cup of old, leftover coffee but the microwave wouldn’t work. The door mechanism wouldn’t latch. And I cried. Then. In my kitchen. I cried because of the microwave, but really, it was everything. I’d held it together with my dad’s heart attack and Hana missing, looking forward to what could be done, what action could be taken. But with the freaking microwave I lost my shit. I just cried and cried.
Then I heated the coffee on the stove, poured it in a travel mug, grabbed chocolate and drove to the pound to look for my cat, making a mental note to get on Amazon and put a bunch of baby stuff in my cart just in case…
My dad’s home now, he’s recuperating. Hana is gone. I’m holding on to a sliver of hope that she’ll show up. The wine: still happening. And the chocolate. I had a convo with my husband about the “one cat less” comment. In fact, we may be “one dog more” soon. Jules is a mamma! I got to hear his sweet mewling newborn cry over the phone. For the moment, I’m not having a freak-out about what direction I’m headed in. In fact, I’m headed to Sears for a new microwave.
