All Choked Up

The blog post preceding this one almost proved to be my last, forever. Amen.

Unless blogging is permitted or encouraged on The Other Side.

(And what do bloggers do about such matters? Do they stipulate in their will: "Hidden in the L volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica you will find my Blogger username and password. Post the following valedictory message. . . ."?)

Last Monday evening, before eating, I had mowed the back lawn. (Cf. my poem "Mowing the Last Lawn," previously and aptly posted on this blog.)

We were in the midst of having some roast pork from the grill, potato salad, and broccoli when my son E. and his wife J. popped over to give my wife a Mother's Day gift of an orchid and a card. Filial pleasantries were exchanged, and then they were off to see "Star Trek." I returned to my mostly-finished meal. Upon reaching the hallowed space of the dinner table, I noticed that my wife, B., had turned on the televised national news (thinking, I later learned, that our meal was done, over, complete). This is an ongoing tug-of-war. I strongly feel that having the television on at this time is vulgar, that it thwarts any chance of familial discourse, whether that discourse is contrary and sullen or bright and airy or silent or raucous. She strongly feels otherwise, wanting to learn about the day's sordid events via something called "the news" ("there's the Internet 24/7, I protest), relishing the electronic medium as a facilitator in the lost art of conversation, or perhaps welcoming the brash way it fills up the empty spaces between what settles for dialogue. In silent protest, I left the kitchen table with plate in hand, almost as a second thought grabbing a lonely chunk of grilled meat, leaving daughter A. and wife B. with the TV on and me gone. I paraded upstairs to my office, where I now sit. I marched with my plate in hand and a piece of meat shoved by my other hand into my mouth. As I was walking upstairs, I detected a sponginess in my chewing. This wasn't going right. Or was it? Try chewing a little more. Well, I can't chew anymore, now, can I? Don't panic. It'll sort itself out. Or will it? By the time I was upstairs, I knew the food had slid down and had managed to get stuck in my throat or somewhere along its preordained path. I couldn't breathe. I was getting dizzy. I was scared. I knew I had to get downstairs, which I managed to do, staggeringly, Frankenstein-like, plate in hand. I did hear something like a silent inner voice say something like, "Well, maybe this is it. It's that simple and ordinary." I got to the dining room near the doorway to the kitchen, and collapsed onto the floor, making frothy sounds, turning, I've been told, bluish gray. B. said, "Are you choking?" "I managed to nod yes. "Daddy! Daddy!" A. screamed in a voice neither one of us, or B., is likely to forget. "Mommy, should I call 911?" "Yes." B. somehow lifted me up and began to perform the Heimlich. She is a nurse. I could hear A. talking to the 911 folks. I could hear her give my age as 56 (yay! I am really 60) and calmly relay answers to their questions. I had not lost all consciousness, although things were getting blurrier and for all I know I'm making all this up and remember this in some fantasy-fractured manner. But A. kept yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!" didn't she? A cry of fierce determination, fear, and love. B. repeatedly administered the Heimlich Maneuver frantically and vigorously (also with fierce determination, fear, and love), but it was not working. There goes that little voice of Sayonara whispering to me again. It wasn't working. For some moments I did think, well, I guess this is it with uppercase i and t underscore bold italic. "Stop fighting me. Relax," my wife yelled, getting more and more frustrated and terrified. Although I found, like the drowning man, it was hard to relax (relax? I'm dying here, like a bad Catskills comedian!), I must have done so even a little because I drew a breath. I had no sensation of having drawn a breath, but something had changed. Something Happened, as Joseph Heller put it in the title of his post-Catch-22 novel. The blurriness began to recede. I could hear better. The pork went who knows where, but not outward. I collapsed onto a chair, exhausted. Were we crying? Or was it later? Or not at all? "Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry. Thanks. You both did a great job. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry I scared you." My voice was hoarse, soft, defeated. The medics got here. My vitals were okay. A. was still frightened out of her 12-year-old skull and escaped to friends across the street, beside herself.

A friend asked if I saw a white light or anything like that.

Yeah. In the kitchen.

We now return to our irregularly written and read weblog.