What I Learned When I Almost Died - Chris Licht [37]
Watching my son play, I was accepting what I couldn’t control, which is the ultimate act of control. People say all the time you should “let it go,” whatever it is. A comment, an irritation, bad news of any sort. I wasn’t used to doing that. I was used to counterpunching until the situation was reshaped to my satisfaction. Giving up illogical anger might still be giving up, but I realized that in this case that meant victory.
I forgave my brain.
I left the deck happier. Throughout my illness, I had worried about where I would end up on the damaged scale, but I had never really allowed for the possibility I might end up better off in some ways. My epiphany about letting go of the anger about what had happened might seem pat, too neat, but clarity can descend like that, under the right conditions. These had been perfect. Andrew was the catalyst, though he did not know it. He couldn’t even spell it. But simply by being there, playing so sweetly, my boy helped his daddy put away not only a brain bleed, but a lot of nonsense.
chapter seventeen
The Meaning of Time
My illness started not too far from the U.S. Naval Observatory. It ended there, too.
For some time, I had been struggling with how to thank Joe Biden for what he had done during my brain bleed, from taking Mika’s call in those first hours to calling Dr. Deshmukh to cheering up Jenny and me by cell phone. I wanted to write him a letter, a suitably formal way to convey my gratitude.
The vice president was having a lawn party for journalists at the Observatory, his official residence in Washington, and Joe, Mika, and I were invited. I e-mailed Biden’s press office to ask if it would be appropriate to hand him the letter I had in mind and was told it would be. But I couldn’t finish the thing, not the way I wanted. All my attempts came out too saccharine, way over-the-top.
Just tell him, Jenny said.
Joe and Mika, it turned out, couldn’t attend the party but I still wanted to go. So on Saturday, June 5, Jenny and I stood in a receiving line at the vice president’s house. One of Biden’s staffers recognized me, perhaps because he had seen me on television. Then it was our turn to be introduced to this man who had leaped into my crisis.
For a brief second, I could tell Biden couldn’t place my name.
“You saved my life,” I said.
And from the data banks of the thousands of people he knows and all the events he has been a part of, he remembered and greeted me as if we had shared my brain bleed. He remembered everything. The usual thirty-second photo opportunity gave way to five minutes of reminiscing as the line backed up.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I said.
He hugged me. He hugged Jenny. He said he had been so worried. He is a great and kind person, and the photo taken that day of Jenny and me being embraced by the vice president of the United States will live on in our family forever. My children will be able to tell their friends that in the worst moment of Daddy’s life, a busy public official put aside the important things he was doing to help.
Among my family and colleagues, there are doubts that this nearly dying business has changed me all that much or will. Mom is among them. Dad, too. Take more vacation days? They don’t believe it. Work still looms too large, they say. They predict I’ll be enjoying a week at the Rhode Island house and Joe will call and I’ll be gone, off on some mission.
Even Jenny says I haven’t changed as much as she expected or hoped. She thought I would feel I had been granted that classic second chance at life and would pare the hours worked on weekends and inflate family time.
I am, though, getting there. Watch, Mom. I’ll take all my vacation. I know now how important it is to make more mental space for family. I know