A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

For the past year, Dad had spent a lot of time resting on the sofa. Thing is, I was just seven and didn't realize this was a change for him. And Mom said it was because he was tired from working so hard. We had no idea Dad was carrying a brain tumor.

When we moved to Vermont in June, he still had to work; so he spent the weekdays in New Jersey, then drove to our place in Victory for the weekend.

Granted, that would tire anyone out. But I guess Dad knew something was wrong, because he went to the local doctor, Dixon, who diagnosed his problem as high blood pressure. (In a later year, I was in Dr. Dixon's office for something and he accidentally made my nose bleed. I didn't make that big a fuss, but later when he came to my classroom to vaccinate the class, he told all my classmates publicly that I had been an unruly patient and had caused problems in his office.)

So you won't be surprised to learn I don't think much of him as a doctor. Or human being.

Meanwhile, by October Dad could no longer go to work. He didn't call them or turn in notice. "You don't have to tell them?" I asked. After all, in previous months it had been so important that he get to work.

"They'll figure it out," he replied.

It was a two-story house and the bedrooms were upstairs. Dad was having problems with dizziness, but also with bouts of mania. Mom instructed me not to "let" him go downstairs, because he couldn't keep his balance. I stood guard, and sure enough, he staggered into the hallway, wearing only a T-shirt, announcing he had to go to the bathroom (which was actually on that floor). I told him I wasn't allowed to let him go. He swept me aside and promptly fell down the stairs, all the way to the bottom. My mom must have heard the commotion (and me yelling, "No, Daddy, no!") and ran to the scene, screaming up to me, "I told you not to let him go down the stairs! Now look what you've done!"

My dad weighed 250 pounds. I was 7 years old.

I guess it was a day or two later that my half-brother, Walter Joseph, and brother-in-law Tommy, arrived in a station wagon. I watched as they manhandled an entire mattress into the back of the vehicle, then carried my dad into it. My mom got in and they drove away.

I never saw him again.

My grandparents were there, as well, having just driven up from Bloomfield, New Jersey; and I was told Walt had taken Dad to a hospital there, and we were to follow. It was too late for us to make the trip in one swoop so we spent the night in a motel, which was a first for us kids. The next day we continued to my grandparents' apartment to await news.

We kids weren't privy to the logistics that must have gone on behind our backs. Someone came to take the goat and calves for the winter; a friend in nearby Granby took Sniffy and Rover and someone else bought the ducks. It seemed to us like coincidence that Walter Joseph and Tommy had shown up at the same time as our grandparents.

It was some days later that Gramma solemnly brought us into her kitchen while Grampa stood soberly behind her. Their kitchen table was set against a wall and had just two chairs. Joan and Louise sat on one while I sat on the other.

"Do you remember Baby Dorothy?" she began, her voice breaking. Dorothy was our littlest sister who had died of SIDS a couple of years before. We nodded.

"Well, you know she's in Heaven, and she's happy there even though we can't see her. Well, your Daddy has had to go to Heaven, too."

Tears were pouring down her face, and Grampa looked as if he might cry, too; but the girls and I just sat solemnly. We really didn't understand what was happening.

"I know you don't know what a brain tumor is," she continued, probably under pressure to not just stand there. "But your Daddy had one. And the doctors tried to take it out, but it was too late and he died on the operating table."

By now the girls were crying, and Gramma hugged them, and then she hugged me. I felt so sorry for her. I knew it was my fault. If I hadn't let my Dad go down the stairs when he wasn't supposed to, I thought, he wouldn't have gotten this brain tumor and died.

I remembered, Dorothy Gene, though I'm not sure my sisters did. All I knew was that everything would now be different…

And that it was my fault because I had let my Daddy fall down the stairs.

I carried that weight for years. Even after I learned that brain tumors typically grow for years before detection, and never ever are the result of falling down a flight of stairs, no matter how long.

There was a funeral. Nobody told me about it or asked me to be there.

But people did come to Gramma and Grandpa's apartment, dressed in dark clothes, and each of whom made it a point to come up to me and say, "You know, you're the Man of the family now." And I took it seriously.

And so did Mom.

And that's how I became an adult at seven.

And why it took me almost 40 years before I would finally be able to grieve his loss.