A Matter of the Heart

Every so often the physical distance between me and my family really gets to me. They're in Poland and I'm in America, and whenever something happens I should be there with them.For the last few weeks my father has been in a hospital with his heart condition. A couple years ago he had a double bypass and a valve replacement. Now it started to act up again and for a while he was in a very serious shape . Between his blood thinning medication, his infections and antibiotics he strained himself pretty badly. I know I've written about this sense of isolation before. And how things in my family have happened through the years and they didn't even tell me. I didn't even know about my dad's original heart surgery until after the fact. This time around my mom keeps me updated. I call home a couple times a week and we communicate via Facebook. I look for cues in the tone of her voice for the things she's not telling me. Does she feel sad or a little bit more optimistic. If I haven't heard from her in a while I assume there's nothing bad to report. But when the news first broke, I was even a bit afraid to open my email or look at my phone in the morning. You want to put it off for a bit, not face the day and what it throws at you just yet. I know it's silly. But sometimes I like having that extra five minutes of not knowing, before I compose myself. I know it's there's some news.  I see my phone blinking.  But before I go on I take a minute.  My mom is now the only source of information, my eyes and ears in the story. And it's an odd feeling how you want to know more, you want to do something but you can't and you hang onto every bit of news for a sense of hope.  I don't have any other means of ways to know. And I can tell that as soon as other topics pop up in the conversation, things must be looking a little better. One thing about my dad is he is pretty stubborn and you can't hold him down.