Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Unmoored

 

Not adrift really.  Just that crawling sense that something in the world is not right. Off.  Off an axis. The old cartoon with the caption "the planet went wobbly".  

My cardiologist died last week.  A wrong death. He was 53 years old, in great health, top of his profession. He went for a dental procedure that involved "conscious sedation" and somehow died. 

He's been a fixture in my life for 11 years.  Nearly 11.  I met him the day of my Sudden Cardiac Arrest.  One of the first things he said to me was "This was not your fault. There is nothing that you did or didn't do that caused this to happen to you today".  It brought tears and to be honest, it still does. For the life of me, I cannot quite articulate why that sentence, that kindness, that unexpected empathy meant so much to me that day and why it still does.

That was Henry.   I don't know how this will go.  I can't quite picture it.  I can't bring myself to try.