THE
ANNIVERSARY 1932
I have a love story I’d like to tell you. It’s
about a spouse remembering a departed spouse, like a couple on a motorcycle
except no bike, no heroin, no HIV. It takes place in Ogden.
After
my mother died on Aug 30 2001 my dad made sure we marked each anniversary. At first, my brothers and sister and I would
travel hours to get home, but eventually we got to the point where just one or
two of us would make it back to go to church with him and spend the day
together.
The
great love of his life, a man who broke up with her, right before her college
graduation, only to return two years later claiming, he’d traveled the world
and hadn’t found anyone to compare. He remained a daily presence in her life. He spoke about her so alive that people were
sometimes surprised to learn that she was not. He took over the garden, she’d
planted and made her own.
When
the 10 anniversary of her death approached, my dad began talking about it and planning
for it weeks in advance. The date on his kitchen calendar was circled and
marked R.I.P. Of course he wanted all of us there but settled for my brother
coming the day of and my sister and me the following weekend.
The day
before the anniversary he went to morning Sacrament Meeting and walked downtown
for lunch with friends, and later told my sister on the phone that my mom still
felt so close that as he was walking back home, he heard some yell and thought,
oh, there’s my wife.
That evening he went out to water flowers,
just as my mother, 10 years prior, had gone out to do garden to pick vegetables
before she died. A neighbor heard the tin watering can clank onto the cement as
he fell and hit his head. My dad died within hours, on Aug, 30 2012, the 10th
anniversary. He needed to mark that anniversary, he wanted us all home. He had waited
long enough.
Now
my end is near. It’s gotten so I can’t walk more than a few steps without being
short of breath. I can’t walk upstairs. I can hardly lift my arms. Dr. Friden
sent me to have an artificial heart designed to take over for my faltering
heart. The task hasn’t been easy the 1st pump was too big to fit in
my body and the next one they installed wore out after about two years. This
was put in at the mechanical circulatory support at BUU’s medical Center in
Provo. Everything is going down quickly. After years of progressive heart
disease my skin and other organs, starved for wateco2 were beginning to fail. Because
I had antibodies in my water stream that would attack foreign tissue, a heart
transplant wasn’t an option. When doctors suggested the heart pump I didn’t hesitate. I was so
sick, I was willing to do anything to feel well again. Almost two years later I
felt marvelous. Barely able to walk before the pump was implanted I was now taking
brisk strolls through my neighborhood at one end of a leash pulled along by my
kitty. I’m planning a trip to Denver. Everything is perfect some candidates
aren’t healthy enough to withstand surgery and complex routines of charging the
batteries and keep the site where the wire connects through the abalone sternam.
But those who qualify the device can be life changing. The tiny pump has proved
so effective and reliable that many older patients who were once too sick to
undergo surgery can go on to have hip replacements or other operations that
further improve their quality of life.
But most recipients shrug off the
inconveniences “Sure, you’ve got a wire coming out of your gut and batteries to
fuss about and all that”. I a Giants fan and someone once asked me if I felt as
if my life was at the bottom of the ninth inning two outs bases loaded. Ready
to be ground up and added to hot salsa. The way I put it my life is in extra
innings. If I’d had my heart attack eight years ago I wouldn’t be out on the
street. I am blessed and grateful?
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
