Technology's Great, but Sometimes You Just Have to be There

One of the fears many of us have is that dreaded, unexpected call telling us a loved one is injured, in a life threatening situation or dead. My call came in the form of an email. I started my day with an email check and planned on another relaxing day of our winter break. The email I received told me to call on Skype immediately; my father’s heart had stopped and he was being wheeled into emergency open-heart surgery.

Distance is hard. This is a tough reality of my life choices as an adult. When my daughter was a baby and I was teaching part-time, I made an effort to drive to see my parents at least every six weeks so they wouldn’t miss out on anything. My parents live in Illinois. It is about an eight hour drive. We didn’t have Skype or a webcam then, and even if we did, I felt it was important to physically be there.

Three years back, when I was living in Minnesota, my mother had a brain aneurysm. This call was a heartbreaker: my Dad’s choking voice, my brother taking the phone and saying, “it’s Mom and it is not good." In that instance, I called the airline, booked a flight for that same evening and was at the hospital with her within eight hours. Miracle Mom survived and recently passed her last major checkup for this issue. Even though I lived 500 miles away, I was there with her and my father, during those 6 days she was in the hospital and then the week she came home. The physical presence, being there for the day-to-day stuff is important. 

But now I live in China. I live in China. I live half way around the world. After I got the email, and then talked on Skype (thank goodness hospitals have wireless), I tearfully looked at my husband and said, “I have to go.” He replied “I know.” And I was online booking the flight. As grace would have it, I was able to book the flight for that evening, and, going back in time zones, would arrive that same day in the evening. Basically, within 36 hours of the event I was there with my father in the hospital. While I was flying, he was finishing his five-way bypass surgery and in recovery. The doctors didn’t make my family feel very hopeful about the surgery, but my Dad is a miracle—like my Mom—and survived against the odds. He is amazing. 

I spent the last week doing some interesting things: hanging out in the hospital, making numerous pharmacy runs, buying a toilet seat extender, talking with the barrage of “old timers” my dad hangs out with, picking out little things for friends back in Beijing, and, my personal favorite, helping to haul a road-kill deer into the back of my Dad’s friend’s truck so they could make deer salami. I also spent time every day on Skype with my husband and daughter who remained in Beijing. Technology is great; it allows you to readily communicate with people around the world. But sometimes, like when something happens to your dad-dad, sometimes you just have to be there.