my father-in-law

He is a good and generous man, my father-in-law. He is a dentist by trade, is known for being good and gentle, and would take payment in the form of fresh fish or kahlua pig if a patient could not monetarily recompense services rendered.

He suffered a bilateral stroke last night and is in the hospital now. It appears his speech is quite slurred and he can be hard to understand...

...oh, the painful memories of my own dear father this brings rushing back to my heart...

He is far away, on a distant island and currently inaccessible to those in his family who are constrained by money, childcare, their own health issues, jobs and/or geography--two of his children, his brothers--so many on the mainland, so hard to get back.

No need to rush right now, so my sister-in-law says. Many people recover from strokes.

Perhaps that is so.

But I know better.

Maybe it is my own bitter life experience that has shown me otherwise.

Tonight my heart hurts. For his family, for the pain all must endure in knowing and seeing such a good, strong man become suddenly so weak. For this period of unknowing that inevitably occurs. For feeling all of that they are numb to, for I know and intimately understand the numbness and dreamlike, auto-pilot state of being we kick into under these circumstances. For my own memories that I cannot let go.