The rest of the way

G T Moore Jr Uncategorized

When I turned fifty I understood how cars feel when their warranties expire. If cars feel anything when their warranties expire.

On December 9, 2015, two months after my fiftieth birthday, I ended up in the hospital with a kidney infarction. I felt slightly upset — and also slightly betrayed — that the odometer had barely rolled over and a major system went on the blink.

But it did, and there I was, for four days, mostly reading and watching TV between nurses’ visits to draw blood, take my blood pressure, and check the heart monitor hanging around my neck. I was annoyed that there seemed to be no real point in my staying in the hospital day after day. Well, besides the fact that I was under observation to make sure nothing else went wrong.

I lived in San Antonio at the time. My parents in Laredo were worried and wanted to come to up right away. I told them that nothing had changed since the CAT scan that showed the infarction. Things hadn’t gotten worse. The doctor wasn’t sure how long I would have to stay in the hospital. There was no place for my parents to stay indefinitely, so I told them that if they wanted to come up, it would probably be better to wait till the hospital let me out.

My dad, in particular, was anxious to get up to SA. He hadn’t yet been diagnosed with the cancer that would take his life — that day wouldn’t come until the end of January 2015 — but I think he already knew time was running out. I didn’t understand his urgency.

On Saturday, when I learned the doctor would discharge me after one final check, I called my parents. My brother drove them up in the cold drizzly dim afternoon, and they sat in the hospital room with me as the discharge process dragged on to my freedom.

Now, two year later, and a year and a half since he’s been gone, I am still struck by the fact that Dad so adamantly wanted to come up to see me. I don’t know why that stays with me, and I still occasionally think about it. Why wouldn’t a father want to make sure his son was all right after a health scare, regardless of age? I suppose I thought he wouldn’t worry so much so long past my childhood.

I was wrong. I will always be glad I was.

They went back to Laredo that night, after getting me home and making sure I was settled in. That is something else that stays with me: How lucky I was at this stage of my life, that as frail as my father was by then, as much as traveling wore him out, he was willing to make that round trip to make sure that I was okay. My dad still wanted to make sure I was okay when I was in the hospital.

My wish is that everyone at any age would have their parent look out for them like that.

(This story was previously published in altered form in LareDOS, A Journal of the Borderlands.)

Past, present, and yet to come

G T Moore Jr Uncategorized , ,

The station wagon is packed with suitcases and stacks of presents. Dad is still in his shirt and tie, and Mom is wrangling us into the car, even though we were ready to go as soon as he got home from HEB. We are twitchy as kids can get. It’s Christmas Eve night! But it is also two and a half hours from Laredo to San Antonio, and soon the Country Squire’s heater and the hum of tires on the road wrap us in a state of fuzzy drowsiness.

We wake on the outskirts of town, colored lights increasing on either side of the highway. The little houses in the country nearing town are lit they way they always have been, and some ranch fences twinkle bright blue, green, gold, and red.

Once at Grandma’s we unload the car, each of us carrying armfuls of gifts up the sidewalk to the porch, where we wait for Dad. He runs up behind us, guitar in hand. Later, when we are teenagers, we will roll our eyes at each other, and even later, we’ll remember that routine with great love, but right now, our stomachs tingle in anticipation. Mom rings the bell, the door opens, and dad leads us in, playing guitar and singing “Feliz Navidad” to grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles sitting in the living room and around the dining room table.

We stack presents under the tall gleaming tree, then make the rounds of hugs and kisses. By now it is midnight, if not later. Santa still hasn’t shown up, but it’s bedtime now, the hardest night of the year to hear those words. . . .

I wake disoriented in a strange room, in one huge bed with my brothers and sister and cousins. The room is filled with a glow of rosy light from down the hallway, where the tree still shines. The comforting murmur of grown-up voices drifts throughout the house over the Mahalia Jackson Christmas records on the stereo, mingling with the smells of the tree, tamales y cafésito, Grandma’s spice cookies. The sounds, scents, and the warmth of the blankets enfold me and I drift back to sleep.

An excerpt from “The Wolf Prince”

G T Moore Jr Uncategorized

An excerpt from a short story, “The Wolf Prince:”

Sebastian uncovered the cub as he carried it to the silent pack, placed it on the ground before them, and stepped back.

The cub limped to the pack and they met and surrounded it. Two of the larger wolves, its parents, Sebastian guessed, nuzzled it, sniffing at the bandages.

“He’s fine now,” Sebastian said. “He’ll be okay.”

The wolves turned to face him, and the largest one dipped its head. On impulse Sebastian bowed his head in return. The cub stepped out from the pack and yapped once.

Sebastian laughed softly. “You’re welcome,” he said.

Dad’s Home

G T Moore Jr Uncategorized ,

“Hey, mijo!” Dad answered the way he always did when I called, happy to hear from me, as though I didn’t call him and Mom every day to check on how they were doing in Laredo. I was curious about the doctor visit. My father had been having stomach problems for several years. The issue wasn’t completely unexpected. As a younger man he drank a little too much and ate too many spicy and fatty foods. Surprisingly he was in decent health. In his mid-sixties he was diagnosed with diabetes, but that was as far as it went, other than the stomach problems. Those grew worse around the time he turned seventy, affecting his intestinal system as well. The doctor’s exam revealed Crohn’s Disease, and not only that; the inflammatory bowel disease had been untreated for so long, drastic steps were necessary.

The doctor recommended Dad undergo surgery to remove a portion of his large intestine and construct a colostomy. Mom, my brothers and sister, and I worried how something so drastic would affect Dad at his age, but the doctor reassured us that though there was some risk, the procedure was routine. After we talked, Dad decided to go through with it.

Dad is considered the patriarch of our extended family. Both grandfathers have been gone for decades, and of all our uncles, only two, Dad’s brother-in-law and one of Mom’s brothers, are still around. So on the day of the surgery most of our cousins, my aunt, and uncles were at the hospital near downtown San Antonio. We’re not a large family, but we were crammed into two waiting rooms while the surgery was performed. Fortunately two of my cousins are nurses, and one of them is married to a nurse who worked at the hospital we were at, so information was not lost in a babble of doctorese.

The surgery proceeded smoothly at the beginning, but of course, that didn’t last. After a longer than usual wait the doctor dropped the bomb: Dad’s insides were a mess. The Crohn’s was more advanced than originally thought, and the entire lower intestine, not just part of it, needed removing, and an ileostomy would be constructed from his small intestine. There was more. Because of the extent of damage due to ulcerated tissue, Dad was in danger of fatal infection.

The doctor talked to Mom, and through tears she told us that he had given us a choice: he could leave things as is, and Dad would die. Or, he could perform surgery, and Dad could die anyway. These were our options? Of course we chose the surgery.

Many details of that day blur together. One thing stays sharp in my memory, however. Mom, my siblings, and I were in an empty bay in the Intensive Care Unit, the curtain drawn around us. I think Mom needed quiet time without everyone asking how she felt. Mom’s friend Ms. Ramirez was there, too. She’s very religious, and Mom told us that Ms. Ramirez wanted us to say a prayer for the dying with her.

“No,” I said flatly. “Dad is not dying yet. We will not say a prayer for the dying.” I was not a little boy anymore. I did not care if I was rude. Any energy we expended, spiritual or otherwise, would be to the positive, focusing on life and bringing him through this alive.

We waited, and we waited, and we waited. As seems to be the case in such situations, moments of grim reality were leavened by family stories, jokes, and bouts of uncontrollable, though muffled, laughter. Finally, the doctor informed us that surgery was done. Dad had made it out.

We couldn’t see him until the next day. After many long tight hugs we left the hospital. My immediate family and their significant others and kids met at the restaurant in the family’s hotel.

Such relief and a release of stress. Such a light, peaceful, loving appreciation in our interactions with each other. And we swore the burgers we ate there were the best we ever tasted.

But the ordeal wasn’t over. Dad would be in recovery, unconscious, for six weeks. The hospital became a place I spent a part of every day. I learned the best times to get the best parking spots in the garage.

There were little milestones. He opened his eyes today! He recognized me! He squeezed my hand! He was moved out of the ICU to his own room–not so little a milestone. He was conscious for hours at a time now. Then the time came to be moved to a nursing home for physical rehabilitation for four weeks. He had been bedridden so long he wasn’t able to walk. That, too, was an obstacle he overcame.

Four years have passed since then. That tough old man celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday last year. He’s still feisty, still tries to eat food that’s now off-limits. He makes us crazy, especially Mom, just because he likes to push our buttons, though after everything, we’ve learned to try to laugh it off. But the struggle has left its mark on him. He looks much older than he would have if none of this had happened. He moves more slowly now. Still, when I talk to him on the phone he sounds almost the same. The voice is little raspier, and just a touch weaker, but I can hear the smile on his face when he answers, “Hey, mijo!”