Wednesday, October 20, 2004
God Took Him Away
I got two e-mails today carrying the same sad news. One was from my mom and the other from my father. A close friend of theirs passed away this morning. It all happened so fast, so soon. My parents started getting friendly with him and his wife some three or four years. They had three children, one a year old than me, another the age of my sister, a year younger than me, and a boy who is now 13. After a while my parents started bringing me to their house for dinners, holidays, and sometimes we went out to picnics with their family.
I remember Mark. He had the full head of gray hair, and a short, plump physique. He liked to sit back and relax, sip a beer, talk about sports, and occassionally toss miscellaneous comments into conversations in his unabashedly Long Islander accent.
Last year we spent Thanksgiving with Mark's family. I was slightly upset about that at first. Since I only flew home from college for 3 days, I really wanted to spend time at home and with my family, not other people I wasn't that close to. But I held my breath, and I went. I think it was during that Thanksgiving that I finally started feeling more comfortable with them. His older daughter invited me to the basement and we talked and then watched a movie. When it was all said and done, I smiled at my mom and said, "I'm sorry I was upset about coming here earlier. I actually had a good time. It was nice."
It was around then that Mom told me Mark had some problem. It was very hush-hush, but he had been living with it for years. He had hepatitis. He was a victim of being a teenager in the crazy 70s and having an affinity for living on the wild side. When he was young, he used to shoot up heroine with his friends, and share a needle. His parents sent him to Israel to get his act together, and that's where he met his wife.
Mark cleaned up his act, settled down with a nice woman, brought her back to the USA, got married, and bought their own plot of heaven on earth in suburban Minnesota. He had three kids. He had a great job doing something he loved, and earning enough money so his wife never really had to work.
But. But he was living on borrowed time. He had hepatitis, and he knew it, the doctors knew it, his wife knew it. But he was lucky. The disease was lying dormant in his body for dozens of years. Everyone knew that at some point he'd have to reckon with it, but no one knew when, and no one imagined it would ever really happen.
But it was last year during Thanksgiving that mom told me his hepatitis was starting to act up. He had to start going to the hospital, and getting on serious medication, and eventually they put him on a wait-list for a liver transplant, "it's not urgent, but if we get you on the list early enough we'll be able to take care of you before it gets serious." I remember when mom told me about that. We held our breath and said, "ooh," but we all just brushed this off as a case of rather being safe than sorry.
His son turned 13 last week and celebrated his Bar-Mitzvah, one of the first major milestones in the life of a Jew. But a few days before the Bar-Mitzvah Mark was rushed to the hospital, hooked up to machines, and stayed there. At first we thought it was just a temporary scare, but then his son's Bar-Mitzvah rolled around and, even though family flew in from across the country, he couldn't get out of the hospital to witness his only son become a "Jewish adult."
Then he slipped into a coma.
And then he started to have internal bleeding. The doctors said they bumped him to the top of the waiting list for a new liver. But it was too late, God had already made up his mind.
And this morning he passed away.
My mom went over to visit his family today. "I told Ingrid, that I want to hug her but I shouldn't because I don't want to get her sick, " my mom recounted to me. "But she ran up to me and hugged me so tight, and wouldn't let go. And she was crying, and she wasn't talking, and I felt so bad for her. I just want to help her somehow, but I didn't know what to say."
And I'm sitting here over 1000 miles away, and there's not much I can do but revel in my shock. Three kids, two in college, one in junior high, a wife without a job. How are they going to get by? Oh how?! Oh my God.
I remember Mark. He had the full head of gray hair, and a short, plump physique. He liked to sit back and relax, sip a beer, talk about sports, and occassionally toss miscellaneous comments into conversations in his unabashedly Long Islander accent.
Last year we spent Thanksgiving with Mark's family. I was slightly upset about that at first. Since I only flew home from college for 3 days, I really wanted to spend time at home and with my family, not other people I wasn't that close to. But I held my breath, and I went. I think it was during that Thanksgiving that I finally started feeling more comfortable with them. His older daughter invited me to the basement and we talked and then watched a movie. When it was all said and done, I smiled at my mom and said, "I'm sorry I was upset about coming here earlier. I actually had a good time. It was nice."
It was around then that Mom told me Mark had some problem. It was very hush-hush, but he had been living with it for years. He had hepatitis. He was a victim of being a teenager in the crazy 70s and having an affinity for living on the wild side. When he was young, he used to shoot up heroine with his friends, and share a needle. His parents sent him to Israel to get his act together, and that's where he met his wife.
Mark cleaned up his act, settled down with a nice woman, brought her back to the USA, got married, and bought their own plot of heaven on earth in suburban Minnesota. He had three kids. He had a great job doing something he loved, and earning enough money so his wife never really had to work.
But. But he was living on borrowed time. He had hepatitis, and he knew it, the doctors knew it, his wife knew it. But he was lucky. The disease was lying dormant in his body for dozens of years. Everyone knew that at some point he'd have to reckon with it, but no one knew when, and no one imagined it would ever really happen.
But it was last year during Thanksgiving that mom told me his hepatitis was starting to act up. He had to start going to the hospital, and getting on serious medication, and eventually they put him on a wait-list for a liver transplant, "it's not urgent, but if we get you on the list early enough we'll be able to take care of you before it gets serious." I remember when mom told me about that. We held our breath and said, "ooh," but we all just brushed this off as a case of rather being safe than sorry.
His son turned 13 last week and celebrated his Bar-Mitzvah, one of the first major milestones in the life of a Jew. But a few days before the Bar-Mitzvah Mark was rushed to the hospital, hooked up to machines, and stayed there. At first we thought it was just a temporary scare, but then his son's Bar-Mitzvah rolled around and, even though family flew in from across the country, he couldn't get out of the hospital to witness his only son become a "Jewish adult."
Then he slipped into a coma.
And then he started to have internal bleeding. The doctors said they bumped him to the top of the waiting list for a new liver. But it was too late, God had already made up his mind.
And this morning he passed away.
My mom went over to visit his family today. "I told Ingrid, that I want to hug her but I shouldn't because I don't want to get her sick, " my mom recounted to me. "But she ran up to me and hugged me so tight, and wouldn't let go. And she was crying, and she wasn't talking, and I felt so bad for her. I just want to help her somehow, but I didn't know what to say."
And I'm sitting here over 1000 miles away, and there's not much I can do but revel in my shock. Three kids, two in college, one in junior high, a wife without a job. How are they going to get by? Oh how?! Oh my God.
