In writing my weight-related memoir, I relied heavily on juxtaposition. That is, the deliberate placement of two memories next to each other creates meaning.
An easy example: My first trip to Cedar Point when I was 8. My dad didn’t ride a single ride that day. I rode the Gemini even though my brother-in-law made my sister sit with me on it because he was positive I was going to puke. This story is juxtaposed next to a story of my children’s first trip to Cedar Point. I rode rides, but I struggled on a couple of them because I didn’t fit or rather JUST fit.
Usually, when someone tells a story they start at the beginning and tell everything that happened until the end.
I don’t write stories like that.
My memoir documents my personal struggles with weight, but I do it in a way that connects my struggles with this issue as a parent of four kids who aren’t overweight and with my struggles with this issue as the daughter of an obese man.
Growing up, I was skinny despite having an obese dad. My children are skinny although for several years they had an obese mom. I want to figure out how to be a parent that helps my children learn things like accurate portion sizes and regular exercise, so they don’t become obese in the future either.
Plus, I want to do all of that without giving them any hang ups about body image, self image and weight.
It is NOT an easy task.
By talking about obesity, I am making it important. But if I don’t talk about it, I run the risk that they don’t realize it is important and ignorantly go down a path that leads to obesity.
It wasn’t until I was obese that I started to look back at my childhood and look at it differently with my eyes wide open. Why didn’t my dad ride any rides at Cedar Point when I was 8? I never realized why when I was a kid. As an obese adult, I looked back and realized it was because he was too big — too fat — to ride the rides. He weighed over 400 pounds. He never would have fit. As an 8 year old, I never realized that.
It wasn’t the reason my dad mentioned back then. I distinctly remember my dad telling me he would rather enjoy the view as he let his head nod to indicate the women walking by in short shorts and tube tops. I remember thinking my dad would rather watch strangers than do something with me. And I was so wrong.
The rest of this post is my write up of what was one of the last day’s of my dad’s life. It was the day he had a stroke, and he never spoke again after this day.
My dad had been sick for a while. He had spent most of the last three years in a hospital, but he was home now. I had stopped by the week before, but I had little kids and a busy life. It was hard to go visit my parents.
The day my dad had his stroke, my four children had plans to attend a huge family event (on my husband’s side) that included a much-anticipated trip to an indoor water park. When my mom called to tell me my dad was being taken to the hospital (again), I didn’t realize how bad it really was and that I was turning down the last chance to see/talk to him because I didn’t see how I could get out of the trip my little ones were so looking forward to.
You’ll need to know that Justin is my son who was around 4 and Maxine is my daughter who was 6.
Here’s what I wrote about that day:
At home around 6 a.m.
I was taking full advantage of the nine minutes of snooze time allotted by alarm clock when my phone rang. Despite being awake, I was surprised by the demanding ring of the telephone at 6 a.m. on a Saturday. If I enjoyed the full nine minutes, I would have exactly 21 minutes to wake up four children and get all of us ready and out the door for the long-anticipated trip to the water park at the new Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City. It was an annual Christmas season tradition for the Sherwood family. Four generations would spend the day together. This year we’d start with the Nutcracker ballet at Interlochen, and then follow up with hours of water fun, ending the day with a formal dinner that evening.
My husband groaned as the phone rang again, “Are you going to answer it?”
I shot him a look, and grabbed the receiver from the nightstand on my side of the bed. “Hello.”
“Linda.” It was my mom. “The ambulance is here. They’re taking your dad to the hospital.”
“What happened?” I asked as the clock radio sang out. My twenty-one minutes had started.
“He woke up and saw a hole on the floor,” Mom said. There are a lot of good things I could say about my mother, but her ability to relay important information at critical times would not be among them.
“Is Dad OK? What did the ambulance workers say?”
“I think his infection is back,” Mom said, referring to an e-coli infection my dad had been battling for more than a year. Undeterred by antibiotics, the infection had robbed my dad of the full function of his mind. I understood why seeing a hole prompted my mom to call 9-1-1. He’d only defeated the infection two weeks ago. If it was back, he’d be going back to the hospital where he’d spent most of the last year. Nineteen minutes. “He’s dehydrated.”
“Mom, I’m taking the kids to Great Wolf Lodge today,” I reminded her. “I can’t come to Grayling.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, or maybe it’s just what I wanted to hear. By that time, trips to the hospital by ambulance had almost become routine for my dad. There was no reason to rush.
“I’ll have my cell phone,” I said, providing the only reassurance I could offer. “I’ve got to get the kids ready. We’re leaving in about 15 minutes. We’ll be gone all day, but I’ll have my cell phone. Mom?”
Mom had been talking, but I realized belatedly it wasn’t to me. It must have been an ambulance worker as they prepared to move my dad.
“I’ve got to go,” Mom said. “They’re taking him now.”
My husband had already figured out most of what was happening from my side of the conversation. I filled him in quickly as I yelled at the kids to get up. It was a Saturday, and unlike most of our Saturdays, this one had a full schedule planned, and we were late. At Interlochen, our group of 35 family members filled several rows in the auditorium.
I held Justin’s hand as his little leg stretched from one lily pad to the next, his head just clearing the water. The lily pads slipped and moved under his feet, and he and I laughed with delight. I’m not sure how many times he made his way across the lily pads. He’d climb up one ladder, make his way back around to the beginning, climb down another ladder and into the pool where I waited. The water was too deep for him to try it alone. The many branches of the Sherwood family was stretched out across the large indoor water park. My mother-in-law opted not to don a swimsuit, but she watched the chaos from a chair near the action. Every so often a bell would ring, signaling the big bucket of water was about to drop. Bodies, small and large would rush to the scene and delight in the force of water that is dumped on them. The first time it happened, I’d been in the wading pool with Maxine and Justin. When the bell rang, they were gone before I realized they were leaving. By the time I caught up to them, Justin had fallen on his rump from the force of the water. He wasn’t hurt. Maxine eyes sparkled as she ran off with some cousins to slide down one of the three water slides.
When Justin stepped from lily pad to lily pad, I was distracted by Maxine’s voice coming from the side of the pool where I stood immersed, holding onto Justin’s hand. “That’s my mommy,” she said, her voice carrying across the room, rising above the normal din of screeching children. The man next to her murmured something to her that I couldn’t hear before calling out to me. He had a clipboard in one hand, and Maxine’s hand in the other. I helped Justin finish his latest trek across the lily pads. As he climbed up the ladder, I followed him out of the pool and we made our way to where the man and Maxine waited.
“I need you to sign this form,” the man said. “You’re daughter was in the pool over there when she began to have trouble. A life guard had to jump in and help her.”
My eyes followed the man’s gesture and the plastic snake slithering in the middle of the deep pool was menacing in a way I hadn’t anticipated. He didn’t say it, but I was suddenly hit by the realization of how close I came to losing my daughter.
“She was supposed to be with her sisters and cousin,” I said, as if that would explain it. My hand shook as I signed my name on the clipboard. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I had too many children, and there were too many pools, too many places for them to go where I couldn’t see. I couldn’t watch them all by myself. I wished my mother-in-law had brought her swimsuit. I listened as the man told me about the free life preservers that were available to be checked out. As he talked, my hands grabbed Maxine and Justin, holding them firmly in my grip. When he was done, we marched purposefully to the corner where the lifejackets were handed out. My hands still shook as I signed my name yet again, this time claiming temporary ownership of two life jackets. With the jackets on, I grabbed their hands again, and went to my mother-in-law to find out where my two oldest children were at. I had to see them. I had to know they were OK.
At the hospital, my dad was starting to get the fluids he needed. He was lucid, but he wasn’t in the best of moods. One by one my siblings called, and they all had a chance to talk to Dad that day. I didn’t call. I didn’t talk to my dad that day. About the time Maxine nearly drowned, my dad had an incident of his own. A nurse came into the room, and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with a cranky patient. The infection my dad had meant his room was quarantined. It was a big ordeal for the nurse to guard herself before entering the room, and again before leaving. It took time the busy nurse didn’t have, and my mom thinks she resented that. My dad complained about something, and the nurse dismissed him. He grew angry, and the pair exchanged words. My mom thinks she killed him. Not long after the angry exchange, my dad had a stroke. His heart stopped beating, and for several moments he was dead. They restarted his heart, but he was in a coma. My mom was alone.
I was in the middle of dinner when my cell phone rang. I could hear my sister Kari, but the reception was horrible. She was able to tell me Dad had a stroke before the connection was lost. I went from laughing and enjoying the meal to crying uncontrollably. I told my mother-in-law what I knew before leaving the dining room in search of a better connection. Outside, I was able to contact my sister.
“He’s not dead,” she said in a rush, trying to get the words out before we lost the connection again. I don’t remember the rest of the phone call. I learned that my sister Dee and brother Chuckie were driving from Arizona. My brother Keith and his wife were on their way from Ohio, and my sister Kari was going to be leaving in moments from her home in southern Michigan. I was the closest to Mom, and it would take me at least an hour to get to her. A priest was with her. My dad was in the intensive care unit, hooked up to a machine.
Back in the dining room, my mother-in-law volunteered to pay my bill and see that my kids get home. They had an hour’s drive as well. There was no one to drive me to Grayling, and I couldn’t wait for my husband to arrive. My mom was alone and my dad was dying. As I drove to Grayling, I called relatives. My dad’s sister and cousins who needed to know. I didn’t have my uncle’s phone number. By Monday, there would be 20 of us squeezed into the tiny waiting room near the ICU. My siblings, their spouses, my father’s brother and sister, and their spouses and children. But as I drove from Traverse City, my mom didn’t have any family with her, and her husband was dying.
