Interconnected

To my son Tommy,

As I sit here in the NCCU waiting room of Johns Hopkins, anxiously waiting to be let back to see your Grandpa Leo, I am trying to digest everything that has happened in the past couple hours, days, weeks, etc. First, an update. Your grandpa is out of surgery but not quite out of the woods yet. We will see if he lost any motor function with the brain surgery and it looks like radiation might be in our future. But they got most of the tumor and your Grandpa Leo is alive, so all things considered, I suppose this is a success. 

Your Grandma Roro is being kept another night at GBMC and she is upset and blames me for that. I hope they can figure out why she is going through these delirium episodes but she is now a less than cooperative patient. I will see her later tonight and take my punishment in place of my father.

It occurs to me how amazingly interconnected life is. Had we not convinced dad to get that CT scan last Saturday? I spent years tending bar practicing getting the occasional belligerent drunks to behave and do my bidding. I had to use very similar tactics to get my dad to agree to the scans. Had I not met and married my wonderful wife? She just happened to start studying nursing which gave us a better understanding of everything going on. What would have happened if she was not there to help? Had dad not had the right doctors at the right time with the proper sense of urgency? Little miracles all.

Yet, it is still a sobering thought on how far beyond control life really is. As much as the little miracles of life entwine and help at the right moment, I am reminded that I have to trust in God. Even in those moments that defy all explanation, those moments where everything happens at once, like when you are in the ER for your mom and you get the call to get your dad to the hospital now, and everything that can go wrong seems to be doing so, faith may be the only thing to pull us through. Alright, I am starting to ramble...they better get your mom and me back to see your grandpa soon.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo