My bleeding heart.

At 32 years old, Randy became an orphan. My sister called me last week, choked back emotional tears, and said my dad was going in for emergency heart surgery. His mom, Oma, said she couldn't lose her first born and dropped to her knees to pray. She is 83. She is still a mother looking out for her little boy. My sister and I weren't quite sure the magnitude and extent of the surgery. We cried, we got strong, I told her it would be o.k., I told myself it would be o.k. We thought we can't lose our dad, our paternal bed rock. She said she'd call our brother and sisters. I called Randy. I knew it would be o.k., I just wanted to give him a heads up that if I received "the call" I was out the door on a plane, right then and there. I paused on the other line. It was just long enough for him to remember "the calls". They caught it early enough if you call 95% blockage of the main artery to your heart early. He was literally a heart beat away from a heart attack. It was stress, diet, hereditary. It was scary. Randy came home from work somber. The call sent him into recalling and remembering his parents,, remembering when he dropped to his knees to pray, and then left our house not noticing his mismatched shoes to be with his sisters and brothers. I am thankful it wasn't today, that my heart didn't bleed today for the loss of my dad. Being an oprhan is a lonely scab that can scrape open at any time and bleed into the dark of the night through one's mind and heart.