Just a couple months ago, I wrote about my parents’ cottages on Lake Ontario and how I had fantasized about being there alone to write. Lo and behold, here I am, in the cottage called “Bayside,” sitting in front of my laptop while other family members are asleep across the lane at “Turfside.”

It’s the third day of an unplanned visit. Earlier in the week as I was unpacking boxes at my new home in West Bath, I received a phone call from my mother, saying she needed me here, 500 miles from Maine.

My dad, who had a kidney transplant in the winter of 2000, developed a severe infection earlier in the month and spent a few days in the hospital. He was recovering quite nicely when he took a sudden turn for the worse and was admitted into the hospital again, the same hospital where he had received a kidney from one of my sisters four years ago.

Over the past week he has been much like a human yo-yo, up one minute and down the next. He’s been through X-ray, in surgery and in the ICU. He’s had the attention of countless specialists from the transplant team, the renal team and the infectious disease team.

‘How much more?’

Considering what he’s been through, including cardiac arrest during one of many procedures, my 76-year-old father has been true to form. Not only has he barely complained, but he jokes with doctors and flirts shamelessly with nurses, making us laugh with delight and relief. One minute he’s telling a funny story, one we’ve heard a thousand times and want to hear a thousand more. The next minute he’s sleeping restlessly as monitors beep, the IV drips, and doctors and nurses enter and exit the room.

Yesterday my sister, Corinne, and I sat vigil with my mother for 12 hours, waiting for my father’s medical team to tell us how they’re going to keep our dad alive. Already on four years of borrowed time, compliments of Dee Dee’s kidney, we wonder aloud if we’re asking for too much. My mother, who is exhausted, asks no one in particular, “How much more can we expect this man to go through?”

The specialists don’t have an immediate answer. As they try to explain what’s going on in Dad’s body, I’m reminded that they are, for all their degrees and years of experience, only human. When my parents’ priest comes to visit, he says glibly, “That’s why they call it ‘practicing’ medicine.” We try to accept that they may not be able to do a thing except keep my father comfortable, and we want so much more.

As Dad rests, I look out the window and remind myself once again that God is in control. I did the same thing over and over again earlier as I barreled down the New York Thruway, sometimes noticing the speedometer at 80 mph and forcing myself to take my foot off the gas.

Minute by minute

When I arrived, I hurriedly walked down the hall to Dad’s room and heard my brother’s deep, melodious voice, followed by Dad’s laugh, and felt instantly reassured. He had a good day that day, very unlike yesterday, which was very bad.

As I write this, my father takes each minute as it comes. The rest of us do, too. This morning Mom and Dad insisted we return to the cottage, rest and regroup. We obediently drove the hour to the lake, flopped down on the porch chairs and planned a cookout. As we reluctantly comply with our parents’ wishes, we’re exceedingly kind to each other. My brother, Bill, makes a macaroni salad big enough to feed the city of Syracuse and all outlying communities. We fish off the dock, go kayaking, drink coffee, do laundry, offer up silent pleadings. Even Mitchell, who is 6, understands the power of prayer. Just last night he said a special one. This morning when he’s told Grandpa’s a bit better, he says wisely, “Of course. That explains it.”

After consuming our rotisseried roast and mountains of macaroni salad, I take my niece and nephew for a walk, returning with a bouquet of black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s lace, sweaty and ragged from being clutched in Mitchell’s hand. My sister starts their bedtime routine. Mom, who refuses to leave my father’s side, calls with her evening report. Dad is asleep in the corner recliner. She’ll nap on the hospital bed.

As I watch Bill and his son, Matt, cross the lane to their beds at Turfside, I close the door and think about how our family has become even stronger and more tightly knit over the past few days. With a common hope and the same prayer, we’re giving our situation to God and taking care of each other. It’s all we can do, yet it’s everything.

Karen Carlton is a freelance writer living in West Bath, who is a regular contributor to this column. She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]