My Daughter
Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from our oldest daughter. She was driving to the Central Dupage Hospital ER to request a CAT scan in order to better diagnose a possible hernia. I have had three hernia surgeries. I’ve experienced how painful a tear in the abdominal muscle wall can be. The injury is not usually life threatening, not usually… I was concerned. Several hours later I learned that she had given some blood to the ER tech and was waiting for the CAT scan. An hour or so more, word came that the scan did not reveal a positive diagnosis, and as the morphine she had received had worn off, she planned to drive herself home.
Along with the hours of waiting for news, I recognized that I could not conceive of a world without our first born daughter. She is a delightful woman in the prime of life — and I know that you’d agree, if you were to meet her. She is a durable anchor of my world, and I was caught, surprised at the thought that everything could change suddenly. Don Henley puts it well, “in a New York minute everything can change.”
Contemplation of mortality, the notion that individuals of supreme importance could no longer be, is — unspeakable. One begins to shudder. Departing this life for myself remains an abstraction. For someone that I love the matter is very concrete.
This poem is for my daughter.
