Not long after my sister, Mary Ellen, could remember who she was again, she cut off the long fingernails she loved and removed the red nail polish.
“When Dad told me how my hands curled up in spasms while I was having the seizure, I knew my hands must have scared him,” Mary Ellen said, drawing her hands up under her chin to show me the potential effect.
“I bet my hands looked like bird talons to Dad,” she said. “I hate to think about that. It will take him a long time to forget.”
Mary Ellen is right.
Dad has been having flashbacks of seeing his adult daughter suffer through a startling seizure while they were attempting to take their morning walk in the park. It was totally unexpected, caused by a combination of medications she was taking.
I wasn’t there, but when I think about it, I can barely breathe. My sister. My father.
“Dad hasn’t mentioned your fingernails looking scary, Mary,” I said. “He says it happened so fast. You two hadn’t walked 20 feet when suddenly you nose-dived into the grass.”
“I remember lying on the ground,” Mary Ellen said. “I was aware of the other walkers stopping to watch, and I could sense that another seizure was coming, and I kept thinking, `Why did Dad have to be the one to see me suffer?’ I knew how much it would hurt him, and I was so sorry for him. I whispered as loud as I could to comfort him, `Oh, Daddy. Oh, Daddy. Oh, Daddy.’ ” When she said the words, Mary Ellen patted my hand as she believes she patted his.
“He says you never said a word,” I told her again, and I remember how that morning happened for me.
When I caught up with Dad in the hospital emergency room waiting area, he was pale, his skin was clammy, and he was self-conscious about being in a public place in his exercise outfit.
He was chilled, and my arm around his shoulders could not stop his trembling. His tears spilled over while he said, “When she stopped breathing, I knew she was going to die. Her face was white. Her lips turned blue. My baby. My baby. My baby.”
I told Mary now, “I had to run out to my car to get him a shirt to put on because he was chilled and ashamed to be seen in his T-shirt.”
“What were you doing with an extra shirt in your car?” my sister asked.
“You know me,” I said.
“You still keep a bra and pantyhose underneath the seat?” she asked.
I laughed self-consciously and said, “I have at times been glad to have them on board.”
“But it’s amazing, isn’t it,” she said, “how we think we are prepared for anything that can happen, and then something does happen, and nothing we’ve envisioned or planned to do is enough.”
I suppose the element of surprise that has caused shock and fear and flashbacks explains why my sister and dad continue to talk about the seizure. They are trying to find some meaning in their moment of crisis.
Listening, I wait for them to tell me the same story-for their respective versions to merge into a whole-but a month has passed and neither one can agree on exactly what transpired that frightening morning.
The seizure remains a mystery that reveals a deep truth about the indivisible connections of family members in a time of crisis.
Mary reports that while having convulsions she tried to urge Dad not to worry. Each time she tells the story, she repeats three times, “Oh, Daddy. Oh, Daddy. Oh, Daddy.” Dad shakes his head because he never heard her say anything. He tells her that holding her in his arms, he cried, “My baby. My baby. My baby.”
Mary holds out a hand to comfort Dad as he works through one more recollection, and he doesn’t see what she has done for him by filing down her beloved fingernails.
I understand how much father and daughter mean to each other, and how they are bound together even more now by this shared trauma.
I pray aloud, “My sister. My father.” But they don’t hear me.
