Page 75 - North Star Magazine 2022

Not long after she leaves, he codes again. There’s no announcement about a patient dying. The doctors are performing CPR on him, but he isn’t coming back. His mother starts to cry.
The nurse returns and asks, “Do you want to go back and see him?”
“No! No!” My nana, dad’s mom, refuses in tears. I have never seen her bawl her eyes out like that before this. Aunt Wendy and Uncle Jason refuse to go in as well. They want his actual family to go in, that means us.
I can’t even speak while I go to the operating room with my family. I don’t want to go, but I stay silent. My ability to talk has been disabled. The operating room is noisy, not by doctors communicating or the beeping of a monitor, but rather strong chest compressions from a doctor himself. I prefer the monitor sounds anyday rather than this despair.
“Robert’s wife is here! Make way!” A doctor announces.
My mom is the first one to go in to hold his hand, followed by R.J
and I. I can’t look at my dad’s body. He is covered in a surgery pad like a thin sheet-blanket. I wince at the monitor, his vitals no longer exist. I look at another monitor, I see their progress. They placed a wire in dad’s veins and the monitor guides them to the blocked artery where they open a balloon to unblock it. I can see the tubes in a colorless picture.
The nurse walks behind me, assuming I am going to faint. Here’s the thing, no matter how much I plead with my body to let me pass out in past panic attacks, it wouldn’t let me. I fight against the urge to look away from dad. My mind begs at me to stop. I hold his hand. They are still warm, but are cooler. I wait for the monitor to beep like my miracle touch revives him like I always see in TV shows. He said it himself, “You are daddy’s favorite little girl.” I want my hand to warm his heart to beat, silently telling him that his favorite child is still by his side. He can wake back up now and we can go home soon.
Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. It freaking does not!
“We have been doing this for twenty-five minutes,” the doctor tells my mom.
“Give it five mintes,” my mom replies. I feel she is desperate too.