Making Toast

by Dennis Green

So on Wednesday I’m having a very rough morning, fearful that the peritoneal dialysis isn’t working, isn’t going to work, that I’ll be forced either to go back on hemodialysis, that waking nightmare, or else…let nature take its course.

And I’m feeling the effects of the kidney failure, without any real treatment since last Saturday’s clinic visit. Severe fatigue, exhaustion really, and nausea.

And I’m idly watching Charlie Rose, which I have flagged on our TV set top box for automatic recording, this one his show from Tuesday night. There is a spirited debate about the consequences of Israel’s attack on the humanitarian fleet of six boats bound for Gaza, and then it comes on: “Making Toast.”

It’s a simple enough story. Roger Rosenblatt, an author, has written a book about the premature death of his daughter, and the grief-stricken family survivors. He tells how he and his wife moved in with the widower, their son-in-law, and his young kids, their grandchildren, and will stay there “forever.” Grandparents become parents, again.

Then Rosenblatt describes a time when he was sitting in the car with his wife, waiting for their youngest son at a train station, and he felt a hand pat him on the knee in a comforting fashion, and he looked over at his wife, but it wasn’t her at all; she was looking out the window…

And as I listen to this story, suddenly, I feel a presence behind me, someone standing behind my chair and offering me comfort, telling me, “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.” It’s my dad. And I begin weeping, and the whole thing sweeps over me, my ordeal, yes, but also his. How he died of lung disease over a period of five long, tortured years. And I realize that he is the only person who can really understand what I’m going through. He had mornings like this.

His presence comforts me in a way nothing else, no one else, has been able to do since this whole ordeal began. And I know that he’ll know the answer to my question, the one burning a hole in my brain since the failure of Tuesday’s treatment session. “If this peritoneal catheter doesn’t work, can I possibly endure going back on hemodialysis? Those three hour sessions three times a week?”

His answer is swift and sure. “Yes, you can, Denny Boy. And you have to. You owe it to yourself, and to all the people who love you.” So there it is. I’ve got my answer. I’ve made my decision. This is what a decent man would do. This is what my father, a decent man, did. He endured five years of pain and suffering instead of taking the easy way out.

When all we can do is go on, life is as simple as making toast.

So I weep some more, not out of self-pity, but some kind of sorrow for my dad, for the whole human race. “Ah, Humanity!” Yep, there it is again, the whole sweep of tragedy and love that is the Human Comedy. All I need now is a little Shakespeare.

On the iBook store shelves are about fifty free electronic books for download, and I’ve downloaded a dozen or so already, including two of my very favorites, the King James Bible and the Collected Works of Shakespeare. Reading a book on the iPad is a wondrous experience indeed, as they have built in the illusion of turning a page, instead of the “button pushing fade out/fade in” of the Kindle. You can also add bookmarks, write notes in the margin, and from the index go instantly to any section of any page you want.

How fortuitous it is that the iPad arrived at about the time I started the hemodialysis! Spending three hours three times a week reading books, watching movies and music videos, playing “Air Harp” or “Electronic Piano,” ain’t a bad fate. Not so bad at all.

©2010 Dennis Green