Afterword

INCONGRUITIES

Wedding by the Water With 190 Guests- $35,000

Honeymoon Vacation to Los Cabos, Mexico (Lindsay & Scott didn’t win)- $15,000, 
A Healthy Child- Priceless

All right, it’s a little “cliché”- my title- but I couldn’t resist.  It is two months since the wedding.  The fall has set in.  The air is crisp and chilly; this morning I could see my breath as I stepped in my yard to let Sonny out, dead leaves crackling under my feet on the frost covered grass.  I love the fall, although, there is something beautiful and sad about it at the same time. The picture postcard trees are full with illuminated warmth of colorful leaves and then in a blink of an eye- they are bare and skeleton-like preparing for the coldness of winter. It’s like life- and it’s incongruity. 

This blog I began remains a part of me.  And because of so much left unfinished- the wedding show Lindsay was a part of and her discovered congenital health problem- I needed to write an “Afterword” which would in some way complete it even though there really are no completions…life goes on and new journeys begin.  However, there were parts to this journey that didn’t reach the destination as the wedding had.  The first part was the unexpected illness that we had found out about which put Lindsay in the hospital twice with bouts of pancreatitis.  It also prevented her from going on the honeymoon she and Scott had planned because of the stent that was left in her bile duct.  The second part was the impending outcome of the wedding show that Lindsay had appeared on, which was a competition ultimately for a honeymoon.  Lindsay and Scott thought for sure that, in all fairness, they should win that honeymoon, not only because they felt that they had the best wedding but they deserved it because of all she went through. 

On October 22^nd, Lindsay and Scott hosted their first official get-together at their new home.  The occasion- to watch the wedding show on The Learning Channel and find out if they had in fact, won the honeymoon.  Naturally, they both knew the outcome but were under contractual obligation and had to sign a release stating that they would not reveal it before the airing of the show.  It was a much-needed juncture to soothe the “after the wedding” blues we were all feeling.  The anticipation of seeing our wedding and all of us on national TV brought back the excitement of the wedding itself.  Lindsay, it seemed, got the most airtime of all the four girls in the competition and not only did the camera love her, but she was hysterically funny.  And then the moment came to disclose the winners and to everyone’s shock and dismay- it was not Lindsay and Scott, even though they scored the highest on “overall experience” and “venue”.  Lindsay came in second.  To this day, everyone who watched- even people who didn’t know us felt Lindsay should have won. Winning isn’t everything though; it’s all the way you look at it. The consolation prize was seeing Lindsay on TV.  My actress daughter- finally was not in the background of some movie or television series as she had been in the past.  On top of that, Phyllis, her mother-in-law, came to the conclusion that she was really made for this.  It was bittersweet- beautiful and a little sad at the same time; just like the fall.

The most important journey we had to complete, though, was Lindsay’s surprise illness.  Dr. #1, whom we had put all our faith and trust into, turned out to be a complete disappointment and really didn’t have any answers or any cure to her condition.  We moved onto Dr. #2, who performed a fourth ERCP and disclosed the most viable solution was surgery…on her liver- and recommended one of the most renowned surgeons- Dr. #3.  Voila!  There was a cure.  We had traveled the “yellow brick road”, which was rocky and full of obstacles when the “click of the shoes” to get us to the desired destination was where we should have gone all along.  Still, the thought of surgery was quite unnerving.  However, as doctors #2 and #3 had told us- it was the only way to completely prevent bile duct cancer, which she had a 50% chance of getting by the time she was 50, without the surgery.

On Wednesday, November 3^rd, Lindsay, Scott, Mark, Phyllis and I went into Manhattan for the operation.  We spoke to all the doctors who explained patiently what was going to take place, including her anesthesiology team- Drs. Zhu, Wu and Lu. (I did not make that part up.)  We said farewell to our tiny Lindsay- wife, daughter, daughter-in-law as she entered the operating room looking beautiful and frightened at the same time.  Memories of the first time I dropped her off at Pre-School surfaced that moment.  I recall the trepidation I felt as she entered those enormous big doors to the school even as the kind-hearted school aides guided her in as I said goodbye.  That first day was long and hard without her.  But the doors to that operating room were not as kind- they were the “whale’s” mouth to me even as the kind-hearted nurses guided her in.  That day was the hardest in my life.  We waited together and in silence as Lindsay’s diseased bile duct was removed, along with her gall bladder and then replaced with a piece of her intestine that was sewed on.  Three and a half hours- the longest three and a half hours I ever endured.  Finally, Dr. #3, my real hero, came out to find us.  His smile said it all.  He took my hand to shake it but held it instead as if he knew that’s just what I needed- the touch of reassurance.  The touch of the end of the nightmare… you can wake up now- it is going to be okay.  He told us all that it went well.  She will be fine. 

Scott and Lindsay spent the night of their two-month anniversary in the hospital.  It wasn’t much of a celebration but they had each other and a much brighter future to look forward to.  He brought her beautiful flowers.  She was still very much in pain, though.  Scott has been by her side the whole time.  He is her rock now, her comfort….in sickness and in health.  The recovery will be four to six weeks.  They have planned to take their honeymoon in February.  Her digestive system has been reconstructed although my daughter is quite concerned about the scar on her perfect flat belly and whether she will ever be able to wear a bikini again, especially on her honeymoon. I will always look at that scar as a reminder of fall – beautiful and sad at the same time, as incongruous as life. 

All destinations are reached now; let the new journeys begin.