Sweet Catastrophe

It seems that with the fast-paced nature of our lives—a busy sort of social norm, it takes us longer to realize when we’re unhappy. And unfortunately, sometimes this revelation comes too late. In his book, Life As We Know It, Michael Bérubé writes “I had begun to realize, reluctantly, how angry I was with the course my life has taken.” This reluctance seems to be the only sort of defense mechanism that we have to combat the unavoidable unhappiness present in our lives. Because it takes us so long to realize when we’re unhappy, other things in our lives are compromised. In Bérubé’s case, his son is born with disabilities, something that was completely out of his control. Reading this book, I am reminded of an occasion and it’s effects on my family in my life, an occasion that possesses similar circumstances, something that was out of our control.

It all happened so rapidly. Like a staccato edition of my life, one bad thing after another. May 3, 1999 wanted nothing more than to teach me the lesson: Don't take anything for granted. I was ten then, and had never heard of the term “cardiac arrest.” My backyard had turned into a neighborhood orchestra, with everyone conducting individual duties to produce on large masterpiece of chaos. I stood ten feet from my mother with my back turned, enjoying the first warm spring evening Pittsburgh had seen in a long time when suddenly everything began to blur.

Mom and dad were going about their usual evening routine, talking with each other, catching up on family business. Gardening was my mother's passion. Our massive estate was bursting with color and fragrance. Recalling our house is made easier by gazing through Home and Garden magazines. Our yard was inviting and lovely, but within seconds, it had evolved into a battlefield.

My five year old sister floated over to me. Her innocence overwhelmed everyone. “Daddy isn't breathing,” she mumbled. I was always the only one to ever understand her.

“What?” I asked, my heart sinking. I spoke, and my words possessed authority, as if I chose to misunderstand her true words and turn them into anything but truth.

“He's not breathing.” She started to sense my fear. I raced to the other side of the carriage house, a small caretaker’s house gracing our scenic backyard. When I met my mother's eyes, the fear that dwelt inside of them cannot be described in words. Through her terror stricken voice she instructed me, her ten year old daughter, to retrieve help.

She had screamed for help prior to my arrival, and although I was only ten feet away, I didn't hear her. That is the part of my tale that haunts me. The properties on my street were huge for the suburbs, spanning at least an acre each. If I didn't hear her scream for aid, how would anyone else have? Two houses up the street a neighbor—by pure irony or an act of God, who happened to be a doctor rushed to my father, responding to my mother's silent cry for help. When she arrived on the scene she began to perform CPR on the drifting life that lay between lilacs and roses.

An ambulance was definitely called. Three different houses called for three different ambulances to come assist with what appeared to be death. I was in a hurry, running as if my life was the next to be stolen.

“My dad--HELP.” I shouted to my neighbor as I barged in his house. I can't remember ever conveying the complete story of what my young eyes had just witnessed, but still 911 was dialed. In a desperate attempt to end the scene, I threw myself on the cold street; tears sailed down my face and everything faded to black.

The back porch echoed with blue and red lights. The ambulance had finally come. What had taken so long? The skilled rescuers had taken their flashing lights to the wrong side of the street, depriving my father, for thirteen minutes without oxygen.

Somehow I gathered the grace to call my grandmother. The sweet “Hello” on the other end sounded the same as it always had, and was just what I needed to hear as she unexpectedly answered the phone. All my body could do was utter a scream over the line to her, and after my shrill blow, she quickly came to our house.

A few days later, the long drive to the hospital tortured me. I just wanted to get there and not have it be too late. Imagine a body only a decade old, making her premiere trip to a hospital to visit her own father. The name “Intensive Care Unit” meant nothing to me. I wanted to see my dad. When he laid eyes on me I don't think he knew who I was. I don't think I knew who he was either. His eyes wandered like a fragile infant mistakenly placed in the wrong wing of the hospital. I suddenly felt like the adult.

“I'm sorry Mrs. Perkins.” Those words terrified my mother. “I don't think he'll make it.” That was what the doctors told my mother that the night of the tragic event.

The warm yellow walls of my over sized home never felt so cold. For ten days in May I sat in fear. “He'll be fine and home before you know it.” Those words strolled out of my mother's mouth a lot. It was hard not to believe her trusting voice. The truth is she had no idea what would happen to him.

The sound of the telephone made me cringe and the sight of my grandmother's consoling hand reaching for the piece of white plastic to answer and receive bad news, only to translate it for her grandkids into good news (a lie), was never pleasant.

Time passed. The dinner table was missing a place setting. His coffee mug lay in the garden where it had fallen out of his hand as his eyes rolled back. I cried the tears he couldn't.

“He's coming home today.” These four words never meant so much. These four words ceased the plummet of my heart that was set into motion ten days before.

Today, the sight of an ambulance still stifles my speech. My heart skips a beat and until I voyage back home, my mind races with every “what if” my head can think of. I was young when it happened, so maybe that's why it is only starting to affect me now. But even through a child's eyes the thought of losing your father forever can be pretty earth shattering.

Because I have had this experience, I am able to see how the course of my life, with its unfortunate and unfair events, parallel Michael Bérubé’s life. “I had begun to realize, reluctantly, how angry I was with the course my life has taken.” Reluctantly, my family and I have been able to realize our unhappiness caused as a result of my father’s illness. Somehow he miraculously recovered in spite of thirteen minutes of oxygen deprivation, CPR, defibrillators, the device that delivers an electrical shock to the heart in order to stop rapid heart rhythm disturbances, three days of life support, and the sacrament of last rights. Just like Bérubé, Bernstein, and anyone else who has had the course of their life take an unexpected turn for the worse, an uncomfortable standard of living has been implemented into my family’s life (e.g. financial burdens because my father had to close his business, dealing with his short-term memory loss, medical bills, etc.). In this way, because we have had to deal with something unexpected and troubling, I feel that I can relate to Bérubé’s situation with Jamie.

Another way I feel connected to what Bérubé is going through, is because of the guilt he feels. “I had two jobs with flexible hours in a world where thirty thousand children died of starvation yesterday and another thirty thousand American workers were downsized…” Because of my experiences, I know exactly what Bérubé is trying to convey. After dealing with something uncontrollable and unfortunate, you want people to feel what you feel, you want them to know how bad you have it—because you want them to appreciate what they have. At the same time, this guilt comes creeping into the back of my mind (and Bérubé’s mind). In spite of what I have lost, or have to deal with, the guilt wants to make me appreciate what I still have. It seems as though life is always throwing us curveballs, or as Bérubé puts it, an “indefinite prolonged period of stress.” Because of the events that happened almost ten years ago with respect to my dad, and just like Bérubé has been given a disabled son, life translates into a time-line of stress, with virtually no way to recover. I don’t want to complain, because I do appreciate everything I have, just as I am sure Bérubé appreciates what he has. But it certainly is hard to get up each morning when you know that you have to kick and scream to get what you want, when other people seem to just glide through life.

It has only been a recent realization on my part, of the hardships that affect my family as a result of my dad’s sickness, and I feel that just like Bérubé, I was reluctant to admit that unhappiness was present in my life. Now that I have been able to realize, I am also starting to accept and learn to deal with it. I am starting to look back on this unfortunate disaster as a sort of sweet catastrophe because I know that in the end, it will make me stronger.