DelBloggolo: I’M DYING!

Saturday, January 10, 2015

I’M DYING!

Just got the bill for my operation, now I know why those guys wear masks.

Yes, the end is near! I caught a cold from the holiday cheer and it is really slowing me down. It seems what seemed like a throat clearing is turning into bronchitis.

There is this nasal drip and it goes into my lungs and makes me cough.

Years ago, Mom would have a super remedy for colds:

Me: Mom, I don’t feel good.”

Mom: What’s wrong now?

Me: I have a cold, my head hurts, my joints hurt, my toes nails and hair all hurt and I’m seeing double. I’m going back to bed!

Mom: Oh, you’ll be fine, take two aspirin and go to school.

Once I got to stay home from school and I was read a list of restrictions:

“You will stay in bed, no TV and no playing with your toys, you will get rest and I don’t want to hear a peek out of you.”

The TV we owned was a black and white Olympic, with the aerial on the roof and it was prone to the wind turning it out of reception, giving us snow until Dad came home and had to climb the roof to fix it on our three story apartment roof.

It was worth staying home even with the restrictions mom placed as conditions for convalescing. She usually made a dynamite lunch such as peppers and eggs, potato and eggs and some really thick chicken salad sandwiches, all on crusty Italian bread from Curiallies bakery. When she was sure you were sick, she took care of you, thinking that a good meal could fix anything but my bad behavior. If I was too sick to my stomach, it was black tea and toast, you had to have something!

Mom didn’t believe in coddling her son, toward the end of the day, it there was any signs of life in my eyes she would make me get out of bed and eat at the table, gauging just how well I had healed and if I needed another day at home from school.

Dad never stayed home from work, always going no matter what his condition was. Work to Dad was important and a blessing to have so he could feed his family.

Every morning there was a ritual: Mom would make him lunch, put it in a brown paper bag and hand him the garbage also. He would kiss Mom and his kids goodbye, and holding both bags go off to work, stopping at the garbage can to dump the garbage then catch the A train to Manhattan. One night he came home looking a little sheepish. Mom asked what the matter was and he confessed that he threw out the lunch and brought the garbage to work!

Once on Thanksgiving Day, Dad thought he was dying, called us all into the bedroom to say goodbye and even had my aunt come to visit and say goodbye too. She immediately diagnosed his problem as the flu, we all sighed a sigh of relief and said to him: No turkey for you! He’s been gone since 1991 and to this day still feels silly about it.