Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.To the head of the table of life By J. G. Fabiano I now know I've finally grown up and it is time for me to grow old. This took me a little bit longer than most people my age. I am 57 years old and I have yet to feel the pressure of being the patriarch of anything. I was always the oldest male of the family who was supposed to lead by example. Of course, this is something I never did well. Hopefully I will have the capacity and the intelligence to fall into this newest and by definition the final role of my life. I consider myself extremely fortunate. Both of my parents are alive and totally functional. In fact, at 87, my father still works for a cable company and does part-time work announcing high school games for the same cable network. My mother, who has always been a stay-at-home wife still cleans her own house, does all the household chores, and takes care of my father as she has done for the past 60+ years. I am not saying my parents haven't had their share of challenges. My father never called them problems. My mother recently had a mild stroke at which time their roles were reversed in that my father took care of my mother. This did not last long because it was more than obvious my mother did a much better job. A few weeks ago my father caught the flu. You remember the flu I am talking about. This one was a difficult one to suffer through. It caused massive loss of fluids and everything else. After visiting my father from the hospital both my wife and I caught the disease about an hour later. Talk about a comedy scene. It looked as though we were competing for who was sickest. I kept on telling her I won and she kept on telling me I was left well behind. My father, as my wife and I, got better but he did not get as better as I hoped he would. A few weeks later he got the flu again but this time lost consciousness. I could not understand how someone who I believed was one of the most powerful men in my world could ever lose consciousness. But, he did. While he was in the hospital my father went through a variety of tests, all of which he complained about. Hell, anyone would complain about having long scary things stuck up in places that just shouldn't be stuck up in. My father's doctor called the family together in order to discuss this newest of challenges caused by living too many years. He told us my father's aortic valve was no longer working and he needed to have it replaced. As soon as I heard this I felt a change in how I was going to view things for the rest of my life. The conversation continued but this feeling of movement overwhelmed any chance of including me in the discussion. It was almost as if I moved from where I was to where I was meant to be even though I never wanted to be there. After awhile a decision had to be made. Many in my family were skeptical as to whether a man of 87 years should go through this type of heart surgery. The surgeon advised he go through it for without the surgery my father would have less than two years to live. I am not saying I had the final word as to whether or not my father should go through the surgery but being the oldest son I had a feeling that whatever I advised would be accepted. My sisters, younger brother, and wife would argue against this point but I know what I know. The decision was made for my father to go through the operation. This was a decision I will always question but a decision that had to be made. He survived the operation with some complications. These complications included a possibility of having some calcium travel to his brain because of his age. This would cause a stroke or some loss of mental capacity. This could not possibly happen to the most powerful man in my world. This could not happen because it was the first important decision I was forced to make because it was now my time to make it. My father is now doing well or at least as well as everyone around me is telling me. No one has said whether or not he suffered through any type of stroke or if he will completely come back as being the father and husband he has always been. I think he will because he has to. He has to because he has always come through for me before. But, what I do know now is I just took that step as going from being the oldest son learning and obeying my father who is and has always been the patriarch of my family to that final role of being close to the person my father has always been. I now know I've finally grown up and it is time for me to grow old. I just hope I've also evolved into being a bit wise like my father has always been. The End.
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