Having a moment

As of late my father is more under the weather than usual. For those who know the full story, I recognize that this is the understatement of the year, perhaps second only to "Britney's having a moment." But thankfully denial isn't just a river in Egypt, and instead it often flows right past my apartment door. That is just fine with me.

Dad's recent battle with pneumonia has got the women of his life in even more of a frenzy than usual, prompting one daughter to cut short a trip to San Francisco and the other to cancel a Tallahassee weekend. He is the man in our lives, one of the only men in the family, actually, surrounded first by three sisters and then a wife and two daughters, as well as a series of Yorkshire terriers, domestic shorthairs, parakeets, hamsters, and hermit crabs that (we suspect) were females. He knows estrogen.

My father fell last week, giving him an awful backache and only increasing his confusion as to what exactly is going on with his body. I of course rushed over to their home equipped with the Bell, because it is well known that Taco Supremes counteract bone deterioration and help to assuage a child's guilt over not being there to catch him. We woke him up to eat and he obliged us. As we each unwrapped our dinner, my mother noticed something odd.

"Kris, your dad's lips are purple," she said, craning her head to examine them from different angles.

They were. His lips were a deep shade of purple, a sign to us that his constant O2 companion and his compromised lungs weren't doing their jobs. I dropped my taco, a feat that should indicate just how dearly I love this man, and walked closer to him, staring more intensely while he watched me with wide green eyes. He took shallow breaths, unable to speak.

"It's actually dried blood," I said, talking to him in measured speech so as not to induce panic. "Dad, you bit your lip when you fell. Let's see where the cuts are." My mother went into automatic motion, scurrying to the kitchen for a wet cloth. I rolled up my sleeves as I thought Meredith Grey might and examined his mouth and his nearly black lips. He looked confused. The ensuing frenzy only made it worse, part comedy, part we're into some serious shit here, a tornado of water and towels and a powerful flashlight with which to inspect our patient. He said nothing, still unable to catch his breath.

And just as I swooped in to rid his beautiful pink lips of their black invader, my father's oxygen finally caught up with his intent. "Guys," he said, raising a single finger to stop me. My mother and I halted dead in our tracks, hanging on his every weak word. I touched his arm. "Yes, Dad?"

He breathed in deeply. "I fell asleep eating Oreos."

I simply could not love that man more.