There is enough
There is enough
(Do you know)
What do you fight for?
(Do you know)
I want more love
I always liked to believe everyone has a guardian angel. Maybe it was a self serving thought; this inclination for thinking someone had your back. Maybe it was comfortingly childish, in a way that you hold space for Santa or The Tooth Fairy.
Some events, though, some turnabouts life happens to throw our way are concluded in such a miraculous way that it defies logic.
My father surviving a heart attack that kills most people before they even make it through the door of the ER was one such circumstance that convinced me someone had to be looking out for him.
"Oh, c'mon, Cyn," he grumbled to my mother as he lifted the lid off the tray the food service attendant had just brought up. "How is a man supposed to survive on applesauce and boiled chicken?" Holding it disdainfully on one finger, he scowled as if the aforementioned poultry was to blame for everything. "Go get a sub from that deli a few blocks from here, would you please? You know the one...has those big pickles they give you on the side. I'd give anything for a Reuben."
"Dad!" Natali and I scolded in unison.
"You almost died. Really?"
"You gotta be kidding me."
My mother didn't raise her voice. Not a single decibel. She was no yeller by nature, but boy, when she was pissed, if you knew what was good for you, you would run. All she had to do was give you what we'd call "The Look," and you better believe we would snap back into line, real quick.
Natali and I grabbed each other's hands, tight, so we wouldn't laugh. Poor dad was cornered. No escaping our mother's wrath for him.
"Joseph Germanotta," her voice went deadly quiet and oh, shit, my father was gonna get the fear of God put into him. If he hadn't almost died, he'll wish he had after she's done with him. "Are you aware that you had full blockage of your left anterior descending artery? Are you also aware that just yesterday, you had a stent put in? There will be no Reubens in your immediate future. And if you think skinless chicken and no sugar added applesauce is bad, I suggest you just wait for the diet I'm going to put you on when we get home."
That shut him right up.
God, it was beautiful because he was there to argue with us and be a big grump. He was alive and sitting up and itching to get the fuck outta there and into "real clothes."
Miracle of miracles, to quote Fiddler on the Roof.
And just outside the door was another miracle.
My personal guardian angel.
In my messed up state, the text I'd sent him was more detailed than just a family emergency. I thought I was vague, when in reality I had flat out written to him that my dad had had a heart attack.
And he'd found me.
My mother and sister, of course, fell immediately in love with him, from both the gesture of flying across the country to be with me and how he had picked up an armful of sandwiches along the way to make sure we'd eaten.
That night, after I'd seen my dad with my own eyes and thanked God that as frail as he appeared and as weak as he sounded, he was most likely out of the woods, we came back to my parent's apartment. My mother insisted Bradley stay and the next thing I knew, I was so exhausted, I was on my old childhood bed, in his arms. Crying and praying and worrying had drained me, traveling had taken everything out of me and his hands on my back and rubbing my hair, along my scalp made me want to melt right into him.
