Call Me Charlie

Issue 310

The diagnosis is ALS. Doctors say 2-5 years.

I’m walking through the sliding glass doors into Publix when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I grab a grocery cart and continue slowly to the bakery amidst red and pink and white cupcakes and balloons and park myself there, sort of out of the way but not really. The call lasts nine minutes and I walk out of the store with my empty grocery cart.

As soon as I pulled the phone out of my pocket and saw who was calling I knew it was bad news. For my entire adult life, my dad has called me mostly to let me know of a funeral, an illness, an accident. On rare occasions it won’t be bad news but it won’t be for pleasantries either. Mom will have told him to call me, delegating to him the task of collecting information about logistics for an upcoming family trip. I will answer the phone the way I always do. “Dad? What’s going on?”

Then he tells me the thing that is wrong, or, if he just wants to know what we all want for dinner on Saturday he’ll say, “What, I can’t just call my daughter??”

But this time I’d been waiting for the call. Things had not been going well. Doctors, tests, a surgery scheduled and then canceled. Why did they cancel it? They wanted to run more tests. Why? There was a small possibility of it being ALS, so they just needed to make sure. If it was ALS there was no sense in doing the surgery.

“How’s the move going?” he asks.

Typically I would not answer this question. I’d say something like, Dad why are you calling? What’s wrong? But I already knew what was coming and I didn’t want to hear it.

I tell him we got an offer yesterday. Very exciting. I tell him how we had to get out of the house with thirty minutes notice. I laugh. It was crazy.

“Where are you staying?” he asks.

He doesn’t know because we never talk. He should know these things. My mom knows these things. Why doesn’t she tell him? Why doesn’t he ask? Why doesn’t he know anything about my life? About me?

“We’re still at the house. We just have to leave if people want to come look at it.”

My dad is having a coughing fit. It sounds wet and terrible.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Yea.”

I finish telling him about the house, and then, “So what’s up Dad, what’s going on.”

“It’s not good news,” he tells me.

I talked for four minutes about the house; he talks for five minutes about the diagnosis.

ALS. 2-5 years.

If he lives for two years George will be 7. If he lives for five George will be 10.

I stare at the floor of the bakery. People bustle past. It’s Thursday February 12th. 3:20pm.

Dad retired a year ago. He used to wake up every morning at 3:00am, drive his truck, do his route, stock chips and other products, talk to his customers. Salesman of the year three times. Then he started staying up late, sleeping in, spending most of the day on the couch, watching old Matlock re-runs, One Tree Hill, Sportscenter, Law & Order, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Family Feud, and if not that then on his phone playing endless games. My mom wanted to kill him.

She and my sisters told me he got old real quick. Sometimes he fell. Then he lost feeling in his right hand. When I went to visit in January, we were sitting in the living room and I noticed his arm twitching. Why is your arm twitching? I asked. I don’t know, he said, it just does that. I don’t feel it.

Because we rarely talk, and because we never talk about serious things, I feel uncomfortable hearing the news. I should be more upset than I am. I don’t know what to say. Neither does he. He says, more than once, “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

ALS. 2-5 years.

Over the next few days I’m distracted by the news. Going about my life and then remembering, and I stop and stare into space and wonder about things. How will my dad move through these last years? What will it be like at the end? How will my mom and sisters cope? What is my responsibility? What should I do next? There’s panic in my chest like I can’t be still. I don’t want to be thinking about this. Even though he’s been struggling, even though it’s been downhill for a while, the officialness of it, the timeline, makes it impossible to turn away. 2-5 years.

What changes when there’s a ticking clock?

—

Until next week,

Charlie