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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Atticus on July 19, 2004, at 21:13:36
Twilight of the Singer
by Atticus
The doctors have removed his song, he tells me, apropos of nothing, breaking the pre-dawn silence of the darkened hospital room.
His name is Jeff, and the surgeons have sliced the song right out of his mouth and throat. Pieces of his once-musical tongue float in specimen jars and lie squeezed between pieces of glass, slides stuffed under microscopes somewhere.
His voice drifts, disembodied, around the curtain separating our beds. At first I think I'm imagining this strange half-conversation -- that all the painkillers designed to keep me from clawing at the razor-sharp pain in my guts have created some kind of waking dream.
But then he speaks the word -- the dread word -- that assembles the whirling puzzle pieces for me: cancer. Cancer of the tongue and throat. Cancer from chewing tobacco, he says ruefully, his emotions clear even if his words always aren't.
See, he's trying to learn to speak again, Jeff is. Trying to learn to speak with part of his tongue missing, and his words have a peculiar drowned quality, bubbling liquidly out in bursts as if he were underwater.
Sure it's 5 a.m., but he needs to talk, and talk now. I ask him if he's well enough to get out of his bed and come around to the visitor's chair by mine. I'm too woozy to sit up. He eagerly accepts, and suddenly I'm reminded of the confessionals I knelt in growing up as a Roman Catholic. I'm on the other side of the screen now. Hope I'm up to it.
He's slight and short, when he hobbles into view. Even in the dim light, I can see a livid, ugly red scar as wide as my finger running from his jawline down his neck and into the collar of his hospital gown. They had to remove lymph nodes, too.
Now the incision has become infected, he explains. He's had to come back to the hospital for intense treatment with antibiotics. His hair is peach fuzz, just beginning to recover from the ravages of chemotherapy. The ghostly shadow of a newborn mustache sits above his upper lip.
"What's wrong with you?" he asks. I'm almost too embarrassed to say, it seems so trivial: acute food poisoning, the doctors think. Food poisoning on Thanksgiving, I say. Can you believe it?
Unprompted, the twisted words tumbling awkwardly out of a mouth that once formed musical phrases so elegantly that people paid to hear them, he tells me what it was like to sing his last song before the surgery. His last song ever.
His band played weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs -- that kind of thing. "I knew I'd never be Sinatra or anything," he says. But he just loved singing. "I remember looking out at the audience, looking out at my girlfriend -- I'd wanted to sing at our wedding -- and thinking, 'Soon this will all be gone.'"
I'm struck silent myself by this. Finally, he says, "I'm tired." He retreats back around the curtain.
"Good night," I say. But I don't sleep again.
The next day, I've recovered enough to go home. Jeff's infection has taken a turn for the worse, and more surgery looms. As I shave in the hospital room's tiny bathroom, I can hear his friends, the other members of the band who have dropped by for a visit, singing do-wop to him a cappella. It's the most heartbreaking song I've ever heard.
It's years later now, and I'm driving to work. I glance down at the speedometer and find my eyes drawn -- reluctantly -- to the Ace bandage that conceals the three long red scars that now adorn my left wrist and forearm, shrouded testimony to a suicide attempt less than two months ago.
Elvis Costello belts out "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding" from my CD player, and I join in. For the fun of it. For the hell of it. For the sheer, unadulterated joy of still being alive seven weeks past my expiration date.
And maybe, on some level, for Jeff, a brief acquaintance whose modest singing career ended amid the rhythmic beeps and flashing light displays not of a recording studio but of an operating room.
It makes me feel a little bit better as I weave through the clot of cars on the interstate, and helps me remember a sobering truth: It's important to sing your songs while you still can.
Posted by Jai Narayan on July 23, 2004, at 16:17:53
In reply to Twilight of the Singer, posted by Atticus on July 19, 2004, at 21:13:36
what an excellent story....you are the one!
This is your way.
I love your stories....please don't stop.
Jai Narayan
ps...how old are you?
Posted by Atticus on July 23, 2004, at 19:16:31
In reply to Re: Twilight of the Singer, posted by Jai Narayan on July 23, 2004, at 16:17:53
I'll be 34 in October. How about you? By the way, I went back to read a bunch of your previous posts this afternoon. The story of your sister's suicide attempt was beautifully written, and, as you can probably guess, left me more than a little stunned with the similarities between my own crash-and-burn and hers. I hope she's doing better now. It was fascinating to read about your reactions during that long dark night of the soul. The piece felt like a complementary bookend to my own poem "Spots," and gave me lots of food for thought. Many thanks. Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on July 23, 2004, at 22:02:18
In reply to Re: Twilight of the Singer » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on July 23, 2004, at 19:16:31
I am 56 years old. I became a grandmother for the second time on Monday.
I was catholic as well.
I love your writing!
Posted by Atticus on July 24, 2004, at 12:45:40
In reply to Re: Twilight of the Singer, posted by Jai Narayan on July 23, 2004, at 22:02:18
Jai,
Congratulations on your new grandchild! That's great news! I'm so happy for you! Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on July 24, 2004, at 16:41:33
In reply to Re: Twilight of the Singer » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on July 24, 2004, at 12:45:40
My grandchild is more complicated than it seems.
I gave my son up for adoption shortly after his birth.
I grieved but had to shut up about it....family secret. I kept the secret for years but then one day I just let it fly at a big dinner with all my relatives. Wow was that a scene....My dad left his place at the head of the table with food falling out of his mouth. He was so good at retreating at the first sign of any emotion.I have reconnected with my son and now his wife and family...
He calls me his birthmother....so I am a birth grandmother now.
I met the first baby a year ago and loved seeing that little boy, he looked so much like his dad (my son). It was very emotional for us all...tears in everybodys eyes. I spent so little time with these precious people.You see nothing is without pain.
I was determinded never to have childern because of all the mental illness in my family. Well this child (my son) sneaked through....
I was 18 and way too young to have any personal strength to assert my desires.
I am glad he was raised with two parents and had the advantage of being supported by established money.
I was too young yet to have anything in the bank.
I never did amass much money.
Where as he is doing well. I hope.
My father would have loved these little boys.
My dad got to meet my son. It was instant love. They were inseperable....
I found them to be roudy together. So much love waiting in each of them for eachother. It was incredible to watch.
My mom even liked my son.
She never liked me.
I was forever a disappointment for her.
but that's another story.Thanks for heralding my birth grandson's arrival.
This is the end of the thread.
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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