My father had 2 brothers, one elder, one younger. He was the middle child, a step below my Uncle Les. Uncle Les was the favored child, a high achiever. He was valedictorian of his high school class at Beacon High School. He went on to do his undergrad at MIT, then to Cornell in biomedical engineering. He then went off to UC Berkeley. His advisor at Cornell moved to Berkely, and he followed him out there to finish his graduate work. Perhaps it also served as a convenient way to escape the family mess, and leave the past behind.
He stayed out there, put down roots, got married and took a job at Johnson and Johnson. He and Aunt Debbie had one daughter, Elisa.
My dad had one daughter, me. The only daughter of the Feldman family.
My father passed away shortly before my bat mitzvah. I became a bat mitzvah 7 months after that terrible death.
Elisa was born in 1992, 5 years younger than me. She became a bat mitzvah in 2005. She was born in October, but her parents birthdays were both in February, so her bat mitzvah was scheduled for February, to make it more of a family affair.
But a few months later, tragedy would strike our family again.
I came home from school one day in June 2005, the end of my junior year, to see my mom with a sad look on her face.
The same sad look on her face that she had when Grandaddy died. That same sad loo on her face that she had when my dad died. Who could it possibly be this time?
Was it grandmother? Was it Uncle Eugene?
It was Elisa.
Aunt Debbie had gone in to wake her up that morning. She did not wake up.
They took her to the hospital and performed some exams. By the time Uncle Les arrived, she had long since been pronounced dead. His daughter, his only daughter had died.
Her death was ruled a sudden cardiac death, some kind of a heart dysrhythmia. Further tests showed a strong likelihood of Long QT. But it’s hard to confirm. All of her old medical records from infancy had been destroyed in an earthquake.
It seemed like a cruel twist of fate.
I am struck by how familiar with death is this young narrator. She knows the look on her mother's face. She has seen it before.
ReplyDeleteI am also feeling for this child too young to know so much sadness...describing the father's death as terrible...knowing instinctively that another tragedy is at hand.
ReplyDeleteBeside feeling the tragedy, "cruel twist of fate," I admire the structure in this piece. The build up about Uncle Les's life, Elisa arrives 5 years younger than the author and then another death. So sad.
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