![[sic]: A Memoir](https://fs.ageofbook.com/474711/thumbs/152x264/sic-a-memoir.jpg)
works. “We’re gonna start the drip now,” one of the staff members ordered, “because in a month the pain will be unendurable and the drip won’t do anything anyway.” My mom recorded the conversation:
“If you think you hurt now, you will be in agony then.” I think this to be an utterly unjust and cruel statement but I say nothing. The doctor ignores my presence. When he tells Joshua about the upcoming “agony,” Joshua is extremely calm and replies, “Oh, really?” Inside, I am trying to control my fury.
My mom had flown in a couple of weeks into my stay. On the plane, she sat next to none other than Luke Duke himself, the venerable Wisconsinite actor Tom Wopat, star of the beloved 1979 television series The Dukes of Hazzard . Why was Luke Duke flying to New York? No, he wasn’t fleeing that double-dealing commissioner Boss Hogg and that forever-bungling sheriff of his, Rosco. Tom had been in Milwaukee doing a tour with a musical, and the next stop was somewhere in Africa, so he was heading home to New York for a week’s respite. My mom says they had a great conversation, and I believe it. He told her he was glad to get out of Milwaukee. The audiences at the show had sucked. One night, he said, there were like a dozen people out there. Why was my mom flying to New York? he asked, and she told him.
Your son is a courageous guy, Luke Duke said. I know things will be okay. But I will keep him in my prayers.
They went back to their reading, but when the plane landed he gave my mom a sweet “good-bye” and a handshake. At baggage they were on opposite ends of the carousel. His luggage tipped onto the belt first, so he grabbed his bags, and then, to my mother’s surprise, walked all the way around the carousel to her and said, “I will not forget you nor your son, Mrs. Cody.”
The other day I asked my mom if she remembered walking into my hospital room for the first time, and she e-mailed me (and this must be a transcription from a journal or diary she was keeping at the time, not just a response to my query):
He is thin, which I expected. His complexion is grey. Of course, he has no hair, no eyebrows. But, most of all, his eyes are sunken into his skull and he looks like a skeleton.
I greet him by saying, simply, “Hi, Josh, darling.” I am determined not to cry. I sit down and we nervously talk. Although I am so proud of Joshua, I feel as though my chest is going to explode. His manner is calm, sweet, and loving. He seems to appreciate that I am here.
I certainly did appreciate it. One aspect of multiday hospitalization that tends to be forgotten in the horror of it all is the sheer complexity of performing ordinary, daily management—mail, bills, clothes, rent, notebooks, pens, et cetera. Being sick is very much a full-time job. Take a look at the calendar my mom and I were keeping.
And here’s a very touching page from one of my mom’s notebooks that gives some sense of the constant errand-running, the housekeeping the caretaker of the ill must sustain: running to the local pharmacy for a certain type of soap, a certain type of lotion; taking the subway all the way downtown to the apartment to grab shirts, pants, Wite-Out, and Hugh Kenner’s book on Ezra Pound, The Pound Era , wherein Mr. Kenner states that Mr. Pound is the most emblematic artist of the twentieth century.
What’s more touching, to me, is a discussion I unfortunately do not recall sharing with my mother regarding the question of mariachi’s assimilation of the trumpet, because that’s when they started the morphine drip.
It was also great that my mom was there when they started the morphine drip because Sophie, who had essentially been the unofficial chief of staff, was unfortunately forced to step down from her position for personal reasons.
One afternoon, she came into the hospital room, and I could immediately tell she had traded the role of Rescuer to that of I Can No Longer Help This Man For He Will
“If you think you hurt now, you will be in agony then.” I think this to be an utterly unjust and cruel statement but I say nothing. The doctor ignores my presence. When he tells Joshua about the upcoming “agony,” Joshua is extremely calm and replies, “Oh, really?” Inside, I am trying to control my fury.
My mom had flown in a couple of weeks into my stay. On the plane, she sat next to none other than Luke Duke himself, the venerable Wisconsinite actor Tom Wopat, star of the beloved 1979 television series The Dukes of Hazzard . Why was Luke Duke flying to New York? No, he wasn’t fleeing that double-dealing commissioner Boss Hogg and that forever-bungling sheriff of his, Rosco. Tom had been in Milwaukee doing a tour with a musical, and the next stop was somewhere in Africa, so he was heading home to New York for a week’s respite. My mom says they had a great conversation, and I believe it. He told her he was glad to get out of Milwaukee. The audiences at the show had sucked. One night, he said, there were like a dozen people out there. Why was my mom flying to New York? he asked, and she told him.
Your son is a courageous guy, Luke Duke said. I know things will be okay. But I will keep him in my prayers.
They went back to their reading, but when the plane landed he gave my mom a sweet “good-bye” and a handshake. At baggage they were on opposite ends of the carousel. His luggage tipped onto the belt first, so he grabbed his bags, and then, to my mother’s surprise, walked all the way around the carousel to her and said, “I will not forget you nor your son, Mrs. Cody.”
The other day I asked my mom if she remembered walking into my hospital room for the first time, and she e-mailed me (and this must be a transcription from a journal or diary she was keeping at the time, not just a response to my query):
He is thin, which I expected. His complexion is grey. Of course, he has no hair, no eyebrows. But, most of all, his eyes are sunken into his skull and he looks like a skeleton.
I greet him by saying, simply, “Hi, Josh, darling.” I am determined not to cry. I sit down and we nervously talk. Although I am so proud of Joshua, I feel as though my chest is going to explode. His manner is calm, sweet, and loving. He seems to appreciate that I am here.
I certainly did appreciate it. One aspect of multiday hospitalization that tends to be forgotten in the horror of it all is the sheer complexity of performing ordinary, daily management—mail, bills, clothes, rent, notebooks, pens, et cetera. Being sick is very much a full-time job. Take a look at the calendar my mom and I were keeping.
And here’s a very touching page from one of my mom’s notebooks that gives some sense of the constant errand-running, the housekeeping the caretaker of the ill must sustain: running to the local pharmacy for a certain type of soap, a certain type of lotion; taking the subway all the way downtown to the apartment to grab shirts, pants, Wite-Out, and Hugh Kenner’s book on Ezra Pound, The Pound Era , wherein Mr. Kenner states that Mr. Pound is the most emblematic artist of the twentieth century.
What’s more touching, to me, is a discussion I unfortunately do not recall sharing with my mother regarding the question of mariachi’s assimilation of the trumpet, because that’s when they started the morphine drip.
It was also great that my mom was there when they started the morphine drip because Sophie, who had essentially been the unofficial chief of staff, was unfortunately forced to step down from her position for personal reasons.
One afternoon, she came into the hospital room, and I could immediately tell she had traded the role of Rescuer to that of I Can No Longer Help This Man For He Will
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