Posts Tagged ‘heart transplant’
Affaire du coeur, Part 2
Friday, January 5th, 2007Affaire du coeur, Part 1
Friday, January 5th, 2007The procedure was to be done in Texas. Kathy stayed at her mom's the night before. She called me, and to be honest, I don't know what we chatted about, but it turned to the surgery, and she told me she was scared. I flippantly told her that she'd be fine, and I'd buy her a beer when she got back. The most painful thing I remember about that conversation was that I didn't tell her that I loved her. Just that I'd buy her a fucking beer when she got back.
The day of the procedure, March 22nd, 1987, I was sitting in my kitchen tinkering with a new computer. My phone rang.
I knew what it was before I even picked up the phone. It plays back in slow-motion even to this day. I stood up and walked to the phone, and picked up the receiver. It was Kathy's mom. She told me that Kathy hadn't survived the surgery.
I'm understating it, when I say I was devastated. I dropped the receiver, started to shake, and sat on the floor. I don't remember when I stopped weeping.
A black hole in time passes, and I'm a pallbearer at her funeral. I tried to be strong, but still wept.
They tell you that with time, the hurt goes away. It never really goes away, just turns into a dull throb of pain. On her birthday, on the day that she died.
I never said "I love you" at the end of that phone call. Every year since, I have a rose placed in a beer bottle at her gravesite. It's been decades, and I still turn into a mess on March 22nd.
There was nothing in my power to stop it from happening. I've had a long time to think about it. I can say I'm sorry, I can say a lot of things, but I'll never forget what I didn't say.
A few years ago, I had a dream about her. I don't remember much of the dream, but I remembered the color of her eyes, her laugh, every part of her face that I had touched.
You never forget.