a best case scenario for a worst case scenario or how an entire wedding party saved my father's life

this is a love story

First I just want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support of my dad these last two weeks.

I also want to acknowledge those of you who have lost loved ones to cardiac arrest or other cardiac incidents. I want to extend love and empathy to those of you for whom stories like the one below are triggering or feel unfair. I have navigated the last few weeks not only as my father’s daughter but as the mother of children who lost their father and feel especially protective right now of those who have lost parents young and/or unexpectedly. My gratitude for my father’s miraculous survival recognizes the pain of those who cannot tell the same story.

I also recognize how emotionally overwhelming it feels to personify “miraculous recovery” — both individually and by proxy, that “luck” is often loaded and paralyzing in ways I do not think we talk about enough.

I am particularly protective of my dad right now who has a long road of recovery ahead of him — both physically and emotionally — and my mother who has been his primary support and caretaker. The emotional toll she has experienced and the trauma she, too, has endured as a partner is so often overlooked in situations like this and I SO appreciate everyone who has not only checked in on my dad’s healing but hers as well.

Again, thank you all for your continued love and support of my family. I am grateful for every positive thought and have been so moved by the many kindnesses and unrelenting support from family, friends and strangers these last two weeks. My love and gratitude for every kind word, positive thought and extended hand.

***

It started from a string of calls from my mom which I did not answer because I was at volleyball with my daughters — second game of the day. She calls me sometimes in succession and I always call her back but do not answer if I’m in the throes of something else.

And then. CALL ME. IT’S AN EMERGENCY.

I’m trying to remember if I have ever received such a text. In my family we tend to undersell things that happen. Like, oh by the way, Grandpa got hit by a truck and lost all of his skin. (This happened a few years back. My grandfather, then 95, got hit by a truck while riding his bike and survived with relatively minor injuries. But the skin, well. A lot of it… went.)

I come from a long line of people who make the best of everything to an oft comical degree: everything will work out types which has informed me more than almost anything. And even when something isn’t working out — as it so often doesn’t — there is always something honest or beautiful or quixotic to mine and then translate from the experience.

Both of my parents are like this in different ways. My dad, for instance is a physicist and so much of science is built on the inherent optimism of hypotheticals. It is also widely known to all who know and love my dad that his favorite movie of all time is Pollyanna.

ED: When I was 17 and failing physics my dad tried to point out the poetry in it all but I refused to see it. (I ended up barely passing with a D- which broke my dad’s heart thus inspiring him to get involved in physics education and the rewriting of high school curriculum at the national level. My hatred of physics became the origin story for him to make it more lovable thus proving once again that even the most negative experiences have the capacity to yield the most positive results.)

***

When I called my mom, my dad was already in the helicopter. They had been at my cousin, Daniel’s wedding in Crested Butte, Colorado, when he collapsed during the reception. All of a sudden, out of absolutely nowhere, my father who just turned 71, is an insatiable exerciser, with no prior health issues — collapsed.

I think a lot about the rhythm and chaos of timing —the poetry of coincidence. And the closeness WE ALL ARE to both death and revival. But never has there been a more ON THE NOSE example of the alignment of chance, than what happened to my father.

My dad is still here because of what is possible in the time that passes between heartbeats. And by what is possible I mean, PEOPLE.

***

Because I wasn’t there and apparently my brain has a hard time processing the idea of something like this happening to a parent — the story of my father’s revival has taken on an almost cartoonish quality when I try to relay it to others. When I try to tell people — what happened.

my parents, an hour before my dad’s heart stopped

It’s almost as if I cannot imagine that what happened actually did so I have to draw a picture of it. His face blurred out. Body shielded by the wedding guests who surrounded him with aid. Their collage of hands overlapping with glimpses of a clay heart underneath.

I wrote about this, here — not the collage or the cartoon — but the image of the hands on my father’s chest — a dozen of them —taking turns MANUALLY beating my dad’s heart — oxygenating his brain — even as ribs and sternum broke, blood coming out of his mouth and nose (CPR is violent as fuck) .

I keep thinking about the fact that they didn’t stop. Knowing how dire it was…

THEY.

DIDN’T.

STOP.

Not until the defibrillator came.

Not until they were able to shock his heart back to beating.

Not until he was intubated.

Not until he was stable enough to be transported to the nearest hospital.

The fact that my father was at a firefighter’s wedding, full of EMTs, RNs and first responders who were experienced in life saving care was an actual miracle. The kind of what are the chances coincidence that is hard to comprehend. But also. And this is why being alive is such a goddamn fucking privilege: it was also just another day in another life where things happen without warning and one’s livelihood depends, not on ONE’S OWN PREPAREDNESS but on the preparedness of others.

***

My sister was in Chile without a phone so it was just me and my brother, both of us trying to comfort each other with what little knowledge we had — allowing ourselves to hold onto hope while reminding each other of the reality of the situation. Statistically my dad had 1-2% chance of survival. Even optimists get real REAL fast with those odds.

My brother and I were both given the life flight tracking link so we could follow him to the hospital which we both did from separate phones. Meanwhile, my mother was in a car with my aunt and uncle on her way to meet my dad at the nearest major hospital — three and a half hours away.

I did not tell my children. I could not tell my children. Not yet. Not until we knew.

But they were with me while I tracked the life flight (first from Ralphs, then from Walgreens) even though they didn’t why I was on my phone and couldn’t figure out how to use my credit card in the check out line. Didn’t know why I stayed in the car to talk to the case worker while they brought in the groceries.

Had to have all the conversations you have when someone may not wake up. (“We just want to make sure everyone in the family is on the same page.”)

I was immediately transported back to the time when Hal was dying. How you have to prepare for death with people who say things like “I’m so sorry” before you even know what they’re apologizing for.

How quickly one remembers the things she blocks out. Goes back to being a seasoned professional at “hoping for the best but expecting the worst” while waiting for answers. Gets her daughter out the door for the Bat Mitzvah on time like nothing’s wrong. Like her entire world isn’t hanging in the balance. The thread of “wait and see” separating one version of life from another.

***

My timeline on the days that passed is muddled. My dad was intubated and unconscious for two days before he woke up on his own and asked for my mother. His first words upon waking up — a thing we weren’t sure he’d ever do even 48 hours earlier: “Where’s Wendy.”

I guess maybe I was saving my breakdown for that moment because that’s where it happened. Relief is a howling deluge.

I imagined my parents on their own wedding day 45 years ago — and in my head I tied a knot between the moment they chose each other and the moment my father survived. Two love stories overlapping to create a third. The heart of two rings.

my dad (and his heart) with the bride and groom

My brother traveled to Colorado to be there for my mom in the days after my dad woke up. My aunt and uncle who were visiting for the wedding cancelled the rest of their trip to stay another week until my dad was stable, recovering and finally able to breathe on his own. And when they left, Daniel’s parents, my other aunt and uncle, took over as support until my  parents were able to fly home.

I wanted to go to him — to all of them — but couldn’t leave for a variety reasons and had my own side-breakdown over feeling torn between my children and my parents. (Fable turned 16 while all of this was going on. I took her shopping for her sweet 16 present the day before my dad woke up and watched her play her very first non-hand-me-down guitar.)

a midsummer night’s sweetsixteen

Hal died in October — six years ago — and I felt the absence of him in a way I haven’t in a long time these last two weeks. The loneliness of parenting alone during a family crisis is its own thing. I am usually honest — to a fault — with my kids about family matters — but there was no fucking way I was going to give my kids anything but the good news I was praying I would eventually have. (My dad is so much more than just a grandfather to them. He is their dad, too.)

***

On Thursday my parents flew home to San Diego after almost two weeks in Colorado where my dad continues to recover at home. He’s getting stronger every day and yesterday he shared a card with the family group chat that everyone who saved his life signed — rooting his recovery on with such love, support AND HUMOR (HOW PEOPLE DEAL WITH ANYTHING WITHOUT LEVITY IS BEYOND ME).

my parents after leaving St. Mary’s hospital in Grand Junction, CO

The entire family group chat erupted in simultaneous cry emojis. A thing that will likely happen daily for a while because how could it not?

My dad is alive and we’re all so grateful. Relieved. Emotionally spent.

***

I often wonder what it must feel like to win the lottery — not because of the money you would win if you did — but what it would do to a person to know that IT’S EVEN POSSIBLE. So much of my dad’s recovery will be learning how to live with that knowing. An emotional tidal wave that, much like the grief of loss, hits at unexpected times.

For him and also for me.

For my mom.

For all of us.

***

There is a scene in Pollyanna where the entire town rallies around her after her accident. The movie, if you aren’t familiar is about a girl who believes that people are good. She believes it so much that she is able to convert an entire town into believing it, too.

The first thing I thought about after my dad woke up, two days after his cardiac arrest with a fully functioning brain, was that scene: how she looks around at all the people who are carrying her. Like, oh, THIS IS A LOVE STORY.

YOUR LIFE IS A LOVE STORY.

I wrote about this already and I hate to repost something I have already said but it bears repeating here, too: there is so much abject horror in this world and I know how paralyzing it can feel to look out the window — impossible, even, to imagine a different, gentler one. But every day, everywhere, people are saving each other. And (two weeks ago) my dad was one of the people being saved.

And I’m so grateful. (I am also going to get certified in CPR and cannot believe it has taken me until now to do so. Please join if you want to! There are places all over the place that offer it in-person but you can also get certified online if its more convenient. Or, if you can afford one — especially if you know or love someone with heart issues get an AED. My dad would not be here without the heroic men and women who knew exactly what to do to keep his heart pumping — and the machine that shocked it back into beat.

Special shout out to Saint Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado for taking such incredible care of not only my dad but my mother as well. THANK YOU, NURSES, DOCTORS AND STAFF (who wore mostly street clothes which my dad thought was the coolest because he goes hard for personal style.) My parents were ESPECIALLY impressed by your selection of “infused waters” specifically Wednesday’s selection. (Pineapple orange! “Thumbs way up” - Wendy Woolf) YOU ARE DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT OVER THERE, THANK YOU!

when it comes to hydration the woolfs do not fuck around

this text and picture was from today, 16 days after his cardiac arrest

<3