Persistence of Memory

I find myself thinking more about family these days. Probably driven by my recent medical issues and the family medical issues discussed below. Also facebook is behind these thoughts as old neighborhood friends have sparked my memory and had me running for the stored-away photo albums by their postings of new scans of tattered old photos.

The picture above is just one of dozens of old photos I have of our small immediate family. Thankfully, it never meant any more or any less to me than any of the many other photos that have survived my dozen or so moves the past 25 years. I say thankfully, because if it had meant more to me than the others, then my life would probably be much different than it is now. I don't remember that day in 1970 - I don't remember that shirt, that watch, that haircut. Nor do I remember the sounds and smells associated with that photo. Thankfully. I did not know this until many years later, but the photo above was staged and was taken with a very clear purpose.

Mom and Dad were each 41 in that picture...I had recently turned 7. It was late September but I don't remember if I got out of school for this...I don't remember much of it. The building in the background is Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C. - The following day Dad was having surgery. I was told that a bee had stung him in the eye...that he had a detached retina and may lose his sight in his right eye. The truth was much more serious...he had cancer. I guess that the surgeon really had no idea what he would find when he began operating. He knew that the eye could not be saved. I'm told that the night before surgery NASA actually did some experiments on Dad's eye to see what extremes of heat and light the human eye could stand. The surgeon told Mom that losing the eye was the best outcome, but he feared that when he got "inside" that the cancer could be well into the brain. If that was the case, he would have to decide just what to do, if anything...Mom was told that Russ could die during the operation...or soon after, if the cancer was already into his brain.

The surgeon was great, the operation was a success. My Dad's eye was removed, and they (thought) all the cancer was gone. Dad's first prosthetic eye didn't fit too well...it even fell out once during a presentation at work. The second one worked much better, and (to me) Dad was pretty much the same old guy as before (although with lack of depth perception and peripheral vision, he was responsible for the destruction of many end-of-aisle displays over the years.)

Dad would live 14 more years. That same melanoma would get him at age 55. The years between 7 and 21 are pretty important for a boy, and I'm sure glad he was with me that additional time. You see, that photo above was meant to be a last family portrait - just in case. Years later when I found out the true story of what happened to Dad when I was seven, I was upset. Upset that I had not been told the truth. But I really was too young to grasp what was happening. I can hardly imagine how my life would have changed if he had died. I was an only child. I cannot imagine the fear I would have grown up with. As it is, I cannot imagine the fear that my mother went through...her own father died when she was just 11. I'm glad that I don't remember that shirt, or haircut, or that watch. I'm glad that I cannot remember the sights, sounds and smells of that day at the hospital. I'm glad that turned out to be just another photo.