Many thanks to all of those people who have bought my first book, Reflections in a Paper Mirror, a collection of poetry. As you know, I am working on a book for the start of 2008, From the Darkness. While working on that, I also started another book, titled 51 Days in Isolation. What follows below is an excerpt from that work-in-progress manuscript.
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The day I got the call, I was busy. Of course I was busy. I was always busy. I’d been busy for nearly five years since starting my new position as Marketing Manager for Leavy and Wilks. I’d been so busy that I hadn’t been home to Sault Ste. Marie in that five year span. I’d called home diligently every Wednesday evening, inquiring how things were, hearing about what was new and things like that, but I hadn’t been home.
The day I got the call, I had just completed a major presentation to a client. It had gone well. I was at the top of my game that day and felt great. My cell phone rang, and when I answered my mother’s voice floated out to me in a disembodied kind of way.
“Can you come home Gulio? You’re father is sick,” she said.
She was crying. I sat for a moment with my head and hands suddenly feeling very heavy. An odd tingling, prickling sensation seemed to be washing over my skin, which had turned cool.
“What do you mean he’s sick?” I asked.
“He has something wrong with his blood, like a cancer. The doctor said he only has three weeks to live,” she said sobbing.
“What?” I said. I had heard ‘three weeks’ but my brain wasn’t processing it because it sounded so – short – wrong. My father was a strapping hot-blooded Italian man who’d moved steel all his life. Once when I was a child, when my dad was repairing our fence, he inadvertently driven a nail throw a board and into his knee. He strolled into the house cursing a blue streak, the two-by-four still nailed into his knee and he simple asked my mother “Pull it out for me.”
All my life, my father had been this larger than life character, there was nothing I could imagine taking him down in three weeks. “Three weeks? What do you mean?”
“You should come home Gulio,” my mother repeated.
“Yeah, I will,” I said. “Let me make some arrangements and I’ll call you back.”
“I’m at the hospital,” she said.
“Ok. I’ll be there today,” I said. “I’ll try to call you at the hospital but if I don’t reach you then you call me at home in about an hour.”
“Ok,” she said. Then she was gone and my uncle Robert came on the phone.
“Gulio?” he said.
“Hi Zio Robert,” I answered.
“You should come home, your mother and father need you,” he said.
“I am, I’m going to fly home today. Is my mother ok?” I asked.
“No. You’re father is in bad shape. The doctor here said it doesn’t look too good,” he said.
“Tell my father I’m on my way. I just have to make some arrangements. I should be there before tonight,” said.
“Ok Gulio. Bye,” he said.
“Bye,” I said and clicked off my cell. I sat for a moment at my desk. Part of my mind wanted to rush off in a panic and get there to the Soo, but another part of my mind told me to take a deep breath. While my father had been invincible all his life, I had been working hard at being rational all my life. Even with the unsettling news I’d heard, I wasn’t about to lose my composure. I quickly jotted a series of to-do’s down on a sheet of paper to better organize the situation. After completing the list I went directly to see my boss Frank Jones.
“Can I talk to you for a minute Frank?” I asked as I poked my head into his doorway.
“Sure,” he replied. I entered and closed the door behind me; his face grew concerned. “Everything ok? I get nervous when people close the door behind them.”
I took a seat and relayed the details of my phone conversation. People react in one of two ways when they hear news of a fatal nature. Some people will immediately become overly compassionate, expressing concern and offering their assistance in any way that you might need it. Other people become distant, feeling somewhat awkward and uncomfortable with the discussion. As I provided the few details I had to Frank, he became the latter, his face taking on a pensive look.
“I’m going to take some vacation days,” I said, “So I can go up and see what exactly is going on.”
“Yeah, yeah, you should do that,” he said, though I could tell his was thinking something different. I waited quietly for a moment and Frank continued, “We’ll need to think about what we do with the Jumsen Sports account.”
Jumsen Sports was a major client of ours, and I had presented to them that morning, a new set of marketing initiatives that had gone over extremely well. It always puzzles me how when faced with a life crisis, work is always so un-understanding. I know the subtle communication that Frank was giving me: ‘Go most definitely, go and see your father, but this really is inconvenient for us here at work.’
“Let me give some though to how we proceed,” I said. “I’ll still be on email and reachable by cell. I’m not sure exactly of the timing yet of all of this.” I said all of this calmly, rationally, but a part of me was burning inside. I’d given five years of my undivided time to this firm, I’d carried ten weeks of vacation days forward over the years because I worked relentlessly. I’d come in early and left late for five years. I’d sacrificed a small part of my life for Leavy & Wilks and now I was feeling somewhat betrayed at the thought of having to feel badly to take a few days of for such a critical matter. “I’ll work with Jan to make sure nothing slips through the cracks,” I said rising from my seat.
“Ok,” Frank said in a detached manner, “Yeah, we’ll figure it out. Go and see you dad. I…I hope, you know, hope it goes well.”
“Thanks,” I said. I exited the office, glancing at my list of to-do items and made my way to the elevator. Once I was off driving for home, I phoned my wife Patricia. As I gave her the details I could feel myself running on auto-pilot. I wasn’t even sure how exactly I’d gotten home, but I did. Patricia was waiting for me with a bag packed for me. She was crying.
“Don’t cry,” I said. “It’ll upset the kids.” My two boys were playing unaware in living room. I kissed them both and feigned a smile.
“Will you call me when you get to the airport?” Patricia asked.
“Of course I will,” I said. “I’ll call you from the Soo as well. Once I talk to the doctor and figure out what the fuck is going on.” She hugged me fiercely.
“I packed you four pairs of underwear,” she said. I laughed. Why is it that women always think of such small, but important, details in times of crisis? Here I was thinking about big picture items like keeping my work going, buying a plan ticket, questions to ask the doctor, but it was my wife thinking of the small necessary details. “And I packed your toothbrush and a little bottle of Scope.” The women in our lives are truly the glue that hold things together.
“Thanks,” I said. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said.
Then I left. Bag in hand I set off for the airport.
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