Tuesday, May 13, 2014

He's Dead, Jim | Kith & Kin

My mother was at Xanadu yesterday, there for the week to look after Where's Teddy? & The Cupcake, when she took a fall & broke her leg. Zounds! This morning, my father & I dropped everything to motor down to Xanadu & bring her home. I drove his motorcar, a '95 Chevrolet Impala S.S., with her supine in the back; he drove her motorcar, an '06 Chevrolet Impala S.S. Calculating the times & distances involved, my father elected to let me take Mom home by myself, while he diverted to Lansing for an appointment with one of his quacks, who has sold him on the fairy tale of fixing his bum knees without surgery, "like Peyton Manning." (He repeats it like a mantra, "Like Peyton Manning.") So, I had to help Mom, who cannot put any weight on her right leg, up the front steps & into the house all by myself, in the pouring rain. This is the quintessential story about my father, of who he is & how he regards those around him, even his closest kin.

It is uncertain how long Mom will be immobile. Appointments with her general practitioner & an orthopedist are being arranged. We've managed to borrow a wheelchair, two walkers, a pair of crutches, & sundry home-care supplies from kith & kin, & the living room is being converted into her sick room for the duration, the stairs to her & my father's bedroom being impassable without Herculean effort & unnecessary risk.

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