On the morning of Sept. 19, 2008, in the emergency room, my father-in-law lay gravely ill and unresponsive. With Grandma and Stacy, I listened to the doctor explain PaPa’s status and the tests they were doing, what they’d found up to that point. Just before I stepped out of the room, I said to the doctor, “Do you see that boy in the window?” There was Kyle in the hall, looking through a small window into PaPa’s room, watching me talking to this woman.
“Yes,” she answered.
“That’s my son, and PaPa is his best friend. Please do everything you can to save him.” I was crying. Her face was genuinely sympathetic and understanding, and she promised she would.
That was 15 months ago, and you already know how that long day ended. I’ve referred to Kyle and PaPa’s close relationship before on this blog, but I never felt I expressed it as fully as I wanted to, as beautifully as it deserved. Last week, I started making a video, using the song “Over the Rainbow” by the incomparable Eva Cassidy as the background. (I posted a blog entry about Eva this past summer, but I think that video has since been removed from YouTube, darn it.) I think one reason I didn’t make a PaPa and Kyle video earlier is that I didn’t have a song in mind; this time last year, I’d barely heard of Eva. But now, I’m thrilled to have this amazing song to accompany our precious memories.
I searched Flickr for rainbow photos, and was lucky enough to find some beautiful pictures available under a Creative Commons license from nicholas_t. The one I used in the video, right after the opening screens, is called “Double Bows.”