who understands?
No one understands me, I sometimes think in moments of self pity.
My father called today to ask me why it was he shouldn't have the dye in a routine CAT screening of his heart next week. He knew that I had intercepted an attempt to do a CAT scan with dye after a bad reaction and scared the doctors into not doing another when we were in, but he couldn't remember why.
I am his dot connector, his translator to all that happened to his body in those 3 months we sat together in many different shaped white boxes, with windows that held the world in a perfect rectangle. I was his mouth when he couldn't speak, or when no one understood his way of speaking in riddles and answers from the wrong way around.
I explained to him how his body reacted last time. How he nearly died, again, and was in ICU an additional week. How he had to go through another round of dialysis.
He thanked me, then in his way, asked me about Jack. He didn't asked me anything actually. Instead he commented on a photo I posted a day prior to the world, which received overwhelming response from friends and fans. Well meaning, but sometimes condescending feeling comments about how happy he looked, or what a good boy he was, or what a big smile he had. No, he cut straight to the heart and said. "Your best friend with his big dark round eyes, looking at you to help him."
My father is not a dull man. Even when countless doctors and nurses discounted him, made notes in his chart about confusion and sent palliative care women in to talk to me. I knew he was only clouded and I knew enough to speak for him as if we were the same person until he could speak for himself again. He always has been a robust and eloquent speaker.
Today he returned that favor for me. He's the only one that saw the photo the same way I did. A swirling moment of trust and love and complete surrender and fear in a single photo. He saw it. Just as I saw it.
My father, he understands me.