Inexorable entropy

He is sleeping now....
I quietly sit down and wait for him to waken.

My folks went to see the musical Camelot at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater the night before last. My mom said it was one of the best musical theater productions she has ever seen and that is saying a lot.

Both my Mom and Step-Dad are professional musicians. Dad played trumpet in the Minneapolis Symphony and taught music privately and in the public schools. My Mom played professionally, taught privately and was a highly successful high school band director. They are maybe the most active 84 and 74 (respectively) year old people I have ever known. They are members of numerous bands and orchestras, and still play as many as 5 or 6 times a week.
They are both playing with the Minnesota State Band which is scheduled to be going on tour to England in March.

But I digress....
On the way home from the show, my Dad started feeling poorly and this soon devolved into a very serious case of either, food poisoning or a very fast acting virus. His body went into overdrive trying to get rid of whatever was ailing him and it was all he could do to get home and into bed. (with the obligatory 37 trips to the bathroom all the way home) Mom woke up at 5AM to discover he was not in bed..called out to see if he was ok, got no response and so got up to see what was up. She found him collapsed on the floor of the bathroom. Dizzy, he had apparently fallen, and hit his head hard enough to knock himself unconscious and bloody. Two 911's later, (he wouldn't go to the hospital the first time the ambulance came, but later, yesterday when he couldn't get up out of bed, he finally acquiesced.) he is now in the hospital getting fluids and waiting for a CAT scan to make sure he didn't do more damage when he hit his head.

Looking at him in his hospital gown, pale and whiter than usual, I suddenly realize that he is .........not all powerful anymore.

In my head, I know this. He is after all 84. But his aging has been graceful for the most part, and both my folks are still so darn active it is sometimes hard to remember they are old. Besides, weak or frail are not words I have associated with this once vigorous and vital man.......

And yet, here he is. As I look this gentle, loving man over, I am struck by the inexorable entropy of our lives.

This is a man that used to pick up major symphony orchestra's on his back, and carry them on the strength of his heart and talent. This man had an international reputation. He was recognized and highly admired by prestigious peers. Plainly put, this guy was a super stud in an industry of studs. There are professional trumpet players in this town, in their prime at half his age, that he could still bury. And yet he turns work away because he does not play up to HIS standards anymore.

I can shut my eyes and remember sitting with the audiences of a lifetime of concerts. I can still hear his unmistakable sound rising up out of the teaming musical maelstrom, emotionally picking up an entire orchestra like some kind of Jedi Master soaring higher and louder till finally leading them exactly where the conductor wanted them to end up. ("That is", as my dad used to say, " if the conductor has a clue what he wants".)

Sitting here in this hospital room, I still get goose bumps from my memories of how gloriously he played.
I remember thinking when I was young, that this was what God would sound like if he played the trumpet. I was regularly moved not only by his talent, but by the sheer will, physical strength and soul it took for him to do that. To say that my heart was/is filled with love and pride for him would be an understatement. .....

But, watching him sleep now at 84, and in the hospital...I wonder ........when did he get...old?

This man, ..who married a divorced mother with 5 young kids..... Did I mention my Mom had cancer at this time? And was going through all the surgery/chemo/radiation choices back at a time when the odds were that she would NOT see 5 years?...Still he wanted into our family... not part time...not "let's see how you are doing in a year then decide" (Though that IS what my mom suggested. She did not want to tie him to her/us, knowing her cancer future, was at best, unclear.) ........."No" he says, "I'm in if you will have me" (DUH!!! Mom was gaga.) ................how many guys would do that??

Still sleeping...He looks so much smaller tucked under his hospital blanket than I have ever imagined him. The doc says he is doing better and can probably go home on Monday. Visitor hours are over tonight, and he needs his sleep more than he needs to see me or know that I stopped by so I'll call him in the morning to say hi and see how he is doing.

He has always said, "I know and love 2 things in this world,
My Family and the Trumpet."
I close his room door, go down the elevator and outside into the dark.
I am struck by something as I leave the hospital..."My Family and the Trumpet."
He considers the trumpet, literally a part of his soul....
Walking through the lightly falling snow to my car, the snowflakes are not the only thing wetting my cheeks as I realize, he ALWAYS says us first.......

Posted by Jack at January 26, 2003 08:06 AM