Moles

The full moon blanketed everything with a soft, eerie glow, casting odd shadows, as I walked over to your house to make sure you weren't dead.

A concerned co-worker asked me earlier today to check up on you. You hadn't been to work in a few days and people were talking the talk, the kind of talk that grows louder the more it is whispered in the rumor mill. (I heard he's on the hard stuff..., girlfriend left him..., calling in sick quite a bit...)

I worried about it myself, knowing some of your past exploits, knowing you've done some bad things. The text I sent to you left unanswered, well, that wasn't a great sign either.

Walking up to your door, my mind raced with visions of how I'd find you, your dog whimpering behind a locked door, the lights out, perhaps the front door open, I'd creep in in the dark, seeing only the bathroom light on, the door ajar, a pool of blood...

The front door was open. The lights on. Rocks happy to see me, front paws on the screen door. I knocked timidly, and then louder, and you appeared looking extremely thin, but alive and my heart dropped its weight.

A short visit, some tea I stole from work (technically its free per shift, and I did work earlier in the day) chatting about this and that, nothing too serious, but serious enough, old friends that have moved on to other places and adventures...

Thank goodness.

sigh.

...

Maybe it is the heat of hospitals, that swarthy kind of stuffy heat that makes me uncomfortable. The tiny, rythmic squeak of shoes on the newly waxed floors. Patients hobbling slowly on walkers and hand rails.

I greatly respect hospital professionals of all kinds for this. For doing what they do because of suffering, handling it, easing it, being absorbed in it all day.

I sort of surprised you, well, Dad first, sitting by your side probably all of the day since you going into recovery. For some reason the two of you will probably never own a cell phone. I'm ok with that, as I greatly resisted it for as long as I could. But they do make planning things like this a little easier, but that's ok. I wanted to visit as soon as I could.

So many machines... A tube slowly draining a liquid resembling melted strawberry jello. Monitors, and numbers, lines and bleeps. Saline drips, a box gurgling blue liquid, wires.

You still kept your humor, claiming they were giving you all the good drugs...

We sat there in the chairs, Dad and I talking quietly while you nodded in and out. Probably one of the most clearest, heartfelt, man-to-man talks we've ever had. Nurses and orderlies made their rounds, moments of silence, more bleeps.

Things went well, for all intents and purposes, though I don't know all of the specifics.
Won't know for another two weeks... But you are doing better.

sigh.

...

Heavy day...