A phone call, that's how things usually start. That's how this chapter of my life started.
Mom called and said that she and Dad were headed to a hospital. I met them there and waited with them and wondered why the neurologist was putting my father through these strange exercises. Some of them seemed almost silly, as if the doctor was determined to find something wrong. After we saw the pictures, I guess I understand why.
A tumor. Of no particular origin, nothing to blame it on; nothing to regret, just that it was there. No idea of how long it had been there, but that it couldn't be allowed to remain there.
So, 2 days later, there we all were sitting in a waiting room, a circle of people who my Dad meant a great deal do, all of us hoping that the outcome would be good. Just a few tense hours and then we were allowed to go in and see him, two at a time. Allowing us to reassure ourselves that he was ok and that the frail mortality in each of us still survived in him.
So, that was the week that my life as I knew it ended and I came to be in this crazy new world that I now find myself. Three days later, Dad went home and I moved home to my parents' house that I had left fifteen year earlier.
