The news came on the first of October: You had tested positive for COVID-19. It came via text message from your wife. She had been keeping us updated as you hadn't felt well all week.
You didn't want to go to the hospital. You knew you would be isolated there. You had underlying conditions, your asthma and your COPD. I'm sure there was a fear you would never come home. If I thought it, I'm almost certain you did.
How could you not? How could anybody? My last text to you had been about my best friend being in the hospital with the virus after his dad died of it the week before.
"You'd better go to the doctor before it turns into pneumonia," I heard numerous times growing up. "Son, don't mess around with this stuff, it's dangerous," you had said to me just a few months earlier when I had been sick (and later tested positive for Influenza A).
Yet here you were, doing just what you had cautioned me against my whole life.
We finally convinced you, and the following Monday you were admitted.
Talking to you that week was all we could do. You sounded down, on the verge of despondent. They had you on oxygen. Your daughter sounded so worried. Every time we spoke it seemed she was on the verge of tears. I was worried, too. But I tried to hide it for her sake.
Not even six weeks ago you and I had gone to lunch for your birthday -- your seventieth. We'd eaten at a familiar catfish restaurant. The food was a long time coming, but it turned out to be a good thing. We talked. You mentioned, almost in passing, about your father putting your mother in the hospital. You had never mentioned this to me. I had tried not to act surprised so as to not discourage anything else you might be about to share.
You tend to remember specific moments in life, moreso than days or weeks or years. And that is a moment I will always remember.
It was at this same meal we talked about my anxiety and how I had gone on meds last year for it, at long last, and how much better my quality of life was now. You told me that you had been on anxiety meds for years. This was another thing that was previously unbeknownst to me. Inside I was frustrated that you had not told me before now. Did you not realize how that knowledge might have helped me?
How had we lived all these years as father and son and it was just now that I was hearing these things for the first time? Was it my fault? Maybe you just assumed you had told me at some point?
These were the things I thought about now, as you lay miles away in a hospital bed. We sent you pictures of the kids. Videos. Anything that might keep you from becoming discouraged.
There is a lot I don't understand about you, Dad. I don't understand your rabid support for Trump. I couldn't help but think that had caused you to not take the virus seriously. You and your wife had gone to Tennessee for dinner the very first night they reopened restaurants because Alabama's were still carry-out only. You were always going somewhere, it seemed. "I'm not going to stop living my life," you had said.
Now I prayed only that you would have a lot more life left to live.
On Wednesday, news came that you might get to come home before the weekend. On Thursday, they took you off the oxygen. On Friday, you were released.
You still sound weak, wiped out. There is a still a long road ahead. But you are home, to watch your Fox News and post your political rants and memes on Facebook.
We don't talk politics much. People are far more important than politics. I know that no matter how far apart we may be on the issues, you will still come over to help me patch up the roof, mend the fence, or work on the car.
You overcame a lot, Dad. A father who committed suicide and was an abusive husband, for starters. Open-heart surgery. Hip replacement. Smoking. An emergency tracheotomy. And now, COVID-19.
Surely you can survive a son that is trying to raise his kids to say and do pretty much the exact opposite of everything your beloved Trump says and does.
I hope so. I want them to have their grandfather around for a lot more years, to have a chance to get to know you better. It's a chance I never had, as mine had both passed on by the time I was three.
Thanks for still being here, Dad. Let's have some more catfish soon.
