Dick ruined my birthday the year we had to take him into the ER for brain problems. Dawn said she got to the house and it was dark, but her dad was standing there in the hallway leading down to the steps, in the dark, saying there was someone down there. The truth is, he started going down the steps and couldn’t remember what he was doing. He had a tumor pressing on the part of his brain that governed reason and emotion, in the front. They asked him what year it was when we took him into the hospital that night, and he said 1999. When they asked a second time, he said 1984, and so we knew something was really wrong.

They operated on Sunday morning, and Chip flew out from Colorado. We waited there together in the small room with the fake Christmas tree and the lights; the surgeon came out to tell us it was alright. But from there on, Dick never got better. He died on Valentine’s Day, a few months later, and spent the rest of his time there, in the hospital. Really, it all ended for him that last night he was here at home, on my birthday.

Categories: Errata

Tags: life