Ruby Nite

I would like to thank everyone for their kind wishes regarding my father, it meant a lot to me.

I left work early on Monday and made my way down to Hamilton to see my father. The entire bus trip down my mind would not stop working, shaping the worst possible scenarios. I was constantly weighing the options my family, well my sisters and I, would have against each possible outcome and none of them looked good.

For those of you who have met my father, you will know what I mean when I say he is larger than life. He is loving, talented, quick to smile and even quicker to embrace you in a big hug. He has a lust for life that is beyond my comprehension. After just half an hour can make you feel like you can tackle the world, and maybe conquer the universe…by lunch. He’s human of course and he can drive me ape shit batty when he sets his mind to it. He has made a lot of mistakes, and the consequences from those mistakes has landed on the shoulders of my sisters and I.

We’ve all tried to help him but my sisters should be nominated for sainthood for everything they do for him. They go to doctor’s appointments with him, drive him around, get groceries. It’s true they have more free time to do it and a car but they are much better at taking care of him then I am. Thank god for my sisters and the fact that they are there for him because it was Tonya that convinced Shannon to go and see him when he called.

Shannon was on her way back to Niagara Falls after visiting with Gary and I in Toronto. Somewhere on route my Dad called Shannon and said he wasn’t feeling well. Shannon offered to stop by and he didn’t want her to. She called Tonya and Tonya convinced her to go anyway. When she arrived he could hardly stand. He was dizzy, couldn’t focus but he had no pains in his left side or his chest. My Dad is a diabetic and she thought it was just low blood sugar so she took him to the hospital.

It turns out that he had a heart attack. You see heart attack symptoms for diabetics are different then other people. I’m not exactly sure why, I could probably do some research but in many cases diabetics will have mild heart attacks, not even know it and heal themselves. The doctor’s couldn’t tell when the major heart attack happened but my sisters and I are fairly certain it occurred in the middle of last week. We know that something happened in his life that caused him an enormous amount of stress. The doctor also believes he had one or two heart attacks in the past.

These heart attacks would explain so much about they way my father has been acting this year. Maybe we shouldn’t have had him move out of our house when my sisters and I were living together. But how do you tell a man who is so full of life and believes in the promise of the future that he can no longer live on his own. That he cannot be independent? How do you crush the main who told you every night he tucked you and your sisters into bed that the stars shone brighter when his girls laughed?

For now it is out of his hands. He had surgery on Monday and they found three blockages in his heart. One they fixed and the other two can only be treated through medication. He’ll be released this weekend and will be moving in with my sisters and Tonya’s boyfriend, Brady, in Niagara Falls so they can take care of him while he recovers. I offered to have him stay with Gary and I knowing that it would not be possible.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do once he is well enough to take care of himself. We’ll be getting him Meals on Wheels, something he adamantly refused before and we are going to start rotating and coming down every week to see him rather then every two weeks. He needs more help then we realized and he will admit.

Really all I want is to get to know my father again. I want to record his stories because he has lived a full life. Fraught with danger and excitement, laughter and tears. I want to learn from him and hopefully live a life as full of love and adventure as he managed to achieve…but I’ll be smarter with money.