No Longer There

The phone is ringing.

The phone is ringing.

THE PHONE IS RINGING!

I sometimes feel my heart race.  In the middle of the night.  When I get a phone call. Or during the day.  While taking a leisurely walk with my family by the lake. The sun streaming through clouds on a brisk morning, interrupted by a fall in room 36.  An abrasion.  A cardiac arrest.   One phone call on top of another,  Occasionally so many that the calls on hold are dropped.  Or not so occasionally.

During dinner.  While in the shower.  Sitting on the toilet.  Day and night. A faint pain in the ear where the blue tooth rests.  Even when it is charging on the bedside table.  A hallucination.  The feeling of something that is no longer there.  Of something that is undeniably no longer there.

The vexing confusion on the other side of the line when I answer professionally, and the call is personal.  An even greater confusion when I answer personally, and the call is professional.  Straining to hear life altering results in a crowded restaurant.  Above the raucous sounds of my frolicking children.  In the car when the light is changing.  

A bad connection.  The basement where there is never reception. At the car wash when the blue tooth flips from my ear to the car, giving the employees an unexpected treat.  Or the waiter who stammers through my conversation concerning constipation, or blood in the stool, or foul smelling urine.  To return to ordering a hamburger, after telling a family member that their loved one has just died.

Upon realizing a few minutes after being woken unexpectedly in the middle of the night, that a pertinent detail was missed.  Waiting several minutes to get the nurse back onto the phone.  And languishing the next few hours restless. despite great fatigue, because now the mind has started spinning uncontrollably.

Distracted conversations with my wife.  Consistently interrupted.  By a patient's emergency.

The ire I feel receiving yet another text.  To only discover.  That it is just my precious daughter.

Telling me she loves me.

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