So, on the 16th, I sat with my Mom at the Transplant clinic of the UK hospital to get the lowdown on her cancer. The room was on the 4th floor, off the ‘B’ elevators, and the atmosphere was grim. The people here had been or would be very sick, and most had a thousand yard stare, wishing they or their loved-one was anywhere but in that waiting room.
Except, that is, for my Uncle Dan.
Dan’s the jokester of the Haddix clan, father of three boys, Jesse, Justin, and Jade. Dan never met a sandwich he didn’t like, and he’s gregarious. He’s the sort of guy who never really grew up, and he’s never met a stranger. More precisely, he’s never occupied the same space with someone for more than 47 seconds without finding some common ground for conversation. He doesn’t DO uncomfortable silence, or silence at all.
Yes, I like my Uncle Dan, in spite of myself.
Anyway, so Mom, Dad, and I are seated in a line at one side of the waiting room, and Dan plopped himself amid a group four seats down. Another peculiarity of this waiting room–the acoustics were perfect. You could hear someone’s stomach rumble across the 20x20 room. The air rang with any sort of conversation. Dan’s conversation, mostly.
“…yeah, she’s just come out of surgery a couple weeks ago. That there is her son. Only one. Valedictorian of his class. Got a great job pulling down good money in Lexington. Loves her to death; wouldn’t hardly leave her side before and after that surgery.”
At this, the woman across from Dan perks-up. I made her to be ~40, coupla missing teeth. “I got a daughter.”
Not missing a beat, I proffered my left hand: “I got a wife.”
* * *
Sometimes, I just feel like a character in Canterbury Tales :-)