Wednesday, December 31, 2014

There’s a Tom Petty song I’ve been humming to myself quite a bit over the past week….

The waiting is the hardest part

Every day you see one more card

You take it on faith, you take it to the heart

The waaaaiting is the hardest part

Okay, so the song has absolutely nothing to do with what we’re going through (I think it’s actually about waiting for… sex?). But hey, it’s catchy. And it’s 1,000 times better than all the other songs out there with something about “waiting” in the title.

The hardest part of all this is knowing that there’s really nothing we can do to speed along my dad’s recovery. We can stand at his bedside and talk to him, and we might even believe for a minute that he can hear us, and that will motivate him to wake up sooner. We may cling to the belief that we can make a difference in his recovery. And sure, it can’t hurt and can only help. But the reality is, it’s a waiting game at this point.

I’m sure we’ve all heard (or seen in the movies) about people who wake up suddenly after months or even years in a coma. One day, they’re out. And the next day, they open their eyes, blink a few times, and are fully cognizant.

Yeah, that’s not how it works. People’s brains don’t just snap back to attention after this kind of trauma. Maybe if they’re out for only a day or two, they might regain consciousness relatively quickly. But otherwise, it’s a slow process. One day, their eyes open just a tiny bit. But their eyeballs are still glazed over. Gradually, their eyes stay open longer, and their eyeballs might even start tracking any movement in the room. Day by day, they grow more and more cognizant.

That’s pretty much our best-case scenario at this point, and while we’re still optimistic it will happen… man, does the waiting wear you down.

Anyway, my sister had to go back to the States last night, so my mom and I decided to come back to Taichung for the rest of the week. It’s where my parents’ house is, and even for me, Taichung feels a bit more like home than Tainan. Which is to say, Tainan feels absolutely nothing like home, and Taichung has just a tinge of familiarity to it.

As sad as it sounds, I think it will be good for our mental health to get away from my dad for the time being, if even only for a few days….