In a Race that Matters

My heart sunk when I saw him lying in that bed—oxygen in his nostrils, a wire of the cardiac monitor (that looked like it had seen better years) attached in the puffy middle finger of his left hand, a dextrose needle in his right wrist. He was wearing a grayish, faded hospital gown and his lower trunk was covered by a thin fleece blanket. He appeared pale ( though my sister Lilit commented he already gained color compared to his first few days in the hospital), and looked helpless. His eyes were closed but his brows creased from time to time, as though even in sleep, he was grimacing in pain. While the room manned 24/7 by a nurse exuded special care, the patient—my father, all of his 84 years, certainly looked like it was the last place he would want to be in had he a choice despite the squeaky clean environs and the nurses' constant, albeit mechanical scrubbing of Lysol-laced rug over the bed rails. The hustle and bustle of gloved hands and masked faces and even the o