But she always turned life into a play.
She was a mother portrayed by an actor.
When I told my wife the Ice Chips Story, She said, “Hey, hey, I’m on your mother’s side With this one. You can choke to death on ice.
Your mother was trying to save your life.”
I scoffed but then did an Internet search And learned that an ice cube can strangle you If it’s large enough and blocks the airway.
Then it becomes a race: Will that ice cube
Melt and slide free before you suffocate?
I told my wife what I’d learned. And she smiled And said, “Now, you’re racing against the ice.
Will you forgive your mother before you die?”
99.
Next Door to
Near-Death
I DON’T BELIEVE in God. I don’t believe in Heaven. I think “afterlife” is only a pretty way of saying “death.” But, in December 2015, when I was lying anesthetized on the surgery table in Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, with my skull cut open so the neurosurgeon could remove a small benign tumor, I dreamed myself in a wild grass field and saw my dead parents standing on the cliff above me. Depressed and angry most of their lives, my mother and father were magnetically joyous. They held hands. I don’t recall seeing them ever holding hands in life.
I knew I was dreaming. I have endured monstrous nightmares most of my life, so I’ve learned many strategies for consciously escaping from subconscious dreams. But I didn’t want to escape that dream of my late parents. In fact, as the sun rose behind them and above me, I felt the strong desire to climb that cliff and join them.
I would later learn, after my successful surgery, that my brain had bled so much that I’d needed four units of transfused blood and two units of platelets. I’d bled so much because the tumor had adhered to my dura mater, the tough membrane between the skull and brain. My dura mater had also adhered to my skull. And most serious, my tumor had grown into and adhered to the superior sagittal sinus, a rather large blood vessel running across the top of my brain. Despite multiple CAT and MRI scans of my skull, the doctors had not seen the extent of these adhesions. So when they’d cut into my head and removed the skull plate, usually the simplest part of any brain surgery, they were surprised to discover they’d also torn open the dura mater and sinus. It sounds terrifying, I know, but I was never in critical condition. It was relatively serious, but I was never near death. I’d only been next door to death. Or maybe even down the block and around the corner from death.
So I didn’t have a near-death experience. Even though I was unconscious, I think I knew my brain was bleeding. I think I heard and felt the increased tension in the operating room. I think I was scared. And to comfort myself, I created the image of my late parents looking at me. Or rather, I’d created alternative parents, a mother and father who offered illuminating love and support instead of fear, doubt, and sadness. It worked. I enjoyed my dream. And I feel warm now as I write about the parents I’d imagined to replace my lost ones. So, yes, when it comes down to it, I comforted myself during surgery. I’ve always been good at comforting myself.
Of course, my neurosurgeon stopped the bleeding, removed the tumor, and repaired my brain. I have small titanium plates, screws, and mesh holding it all together. The doctor told me I wouldn’t set off airport metal detectors. But I don’t know why not. I don’t know anything but the most general details about my surgery. I suppose I could do more research, but I prefer the mystery of medicine and healing. I prefer mystery in almost all things.
Near the end of my surgery, I dreamed of my parents again. This time, they were standing in that same grassy field with me. Still holding hands, they stood maybe fifty feet away. They weren’t wearing white robes. They didn’t have wings or halos. No, they were both dressed in the same clothes in which they’d been buried. My mother’s favorite turquoise suit was simply tailored and beautiful, and my father’s favorite sweatpants and Geronimo T-shirt looked comfortable and sloppy. They looked like the people I used to know. I waved hello. They smiled, waved good-bye, and walked away through the tall grass. I wasn’t sad to see them go. I knew it was time to wake. And so I did.
100.
The Only Time
FOUR DAYS AFTER brain surgery, in a private room in Harborview Medical Center, I took a sip of ice-cold water and hiccupped.
I laughed. I often hiccupped after my first drink of any icy beverage. Just like my late father did. We shared that reflex.
Ice-cubed drink. One big hiccup. Laughter. Slight embarrassment if it was a public hiccup.
That was the routine.
But, after brain surgery, I hiccupped once, twice, three times in a minute. And then I hiccupped for eight straight hours.
Despite all the pain in my life—and the large number of tragedies—that was the only time I ever seriously considered suicide.
I was almost murdered by hiccups. How hilarious is that?
101.
Scanned
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS after my brain surgery, I met my ICU neurological nurse. Well, I’d met her the day before, but I didn’t remember her because I’d been heavily medicated. I was still heavily medicated only a day after surgery, but I felt like I was mostly living in reality.
“Didn’t you say something about being a fan of mine?” I asked her, needing as much external validation as possible. I had never felt more vulnerable in my adult life, and I was probably also feeling post-traumatic effects from the brain surgeries I had in my early childhood. Yeah, my current brain surgery was reminding me of my previous brain surgeries.
“I read your first book of poems my freshman year of college,” the nurse said. “And I have read everything since.”
“That’s cool,” I said. “Thank you.”
I felt happy. Safer. I figured that a person who loved my words would, by association, also love my brain, and would therefore pay special attention to me.
“I’ll never tell anybody you are my patient,” she said.
“Doesn’t the law require you to protect my privacy?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “HIPAA. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. But I won’t even tell my husband you are my patient. I won’t tell my dogs.”
“HIPAA protects me,” I said. “But I’m a writer. And I don’t think there’s anything that protects you from me. You’re going to appear in my poems and stories. Well, the real you and the fictional version of you.”
“Just make me awesome,” she said.
“In some future book, I’m going to blend you with another fan,” I said. “She loved my movie Smoke Signals and wouldn’t date any guy who didn’t love it as much as she did.”
“I don’t like that movie that much,” she said. “It’s so much tamer than your books. Too tame.”
“See there,” I said. “You’re already becoming fictional.”
“But based on real events,” she said.