A few weeks ago, my dad’s heart doctor suspected that Dad had had a heart attack some time recently. So he sent him to Memphis for a battery of tests. I hoofed it out east yesterday to sit with my parents in the waiting room in between the tests. The people at the Stern Cardio clinic were ridiculously nice to us. I watched my dad come and go from the waiting room while wearing a fetching seersucker robe. His spirits were high even though he had just come off his midnight shift at the paper mill and hadn’t eaten in many many many hours at the request of the clinic.
In this picture, it looks like maybe he’s going to smooch my mom, but in fact he is leaning in and making rabbit noises to make fun of her for losing a tooth right up front, which she is so embarrassed about and can’t get fixed until next week (stupid Good Friday). Mom showed me the little ring box she’s carting around with her that contains the tooth. And the superglue she attempted to use in desperation to get the tooth to stick.
We sat in that waiting room, cracking up at mom’s whistling snaggletooth (“I look like a real Hardin Countian now!” she said) and probably making everyone around us very uncomfortable. It was hilarious.
And the best part? Dad got a clean bill of health and checked out just fine. No heart attack after all. He just has to lose 30 pounds.
That sound you hear is a million pounds of worry lifting all around me.