An Excerpt from Stephen's Upcoming Book, Everything Must Change
Monday, September 6th 2010 @ 10:46 AM
I am pleased to share the Preface of my new book with you, titled Everything Must Change. I am still in the writing stages and Lord willing, the book will be published and available either in the spring or summer of 2011. God bless, Stephen Bennett
Preface
As I sat by my father’s bedside in the all too familiar setting where I said goodbye to my mother over a decade earlier, the young nurse on duty walked in.
“Good afternoon. Can I get you anything, Mr. Bennett? An extra pillow or maybe a blanket?” she indifferently asked as she scanned the monitor and wrote on her clipboard.
“How about a frickin’ casket with a Lincoln Continental hood ornament placed at the end near my feet? I want to make my entrance into heaven – or hell – in class,” he responded, as his smile was interrupted by a laborious, deep cough.
I tried to offer my father a cup of water from his table tray, but he refused with a few short waves of his hand.
“Oh, come on now,” the attractive Hispanic LPN giggled as she motioned for him to extend his arm to have his blood pressure checked. “Try to be a bit more positive Mr. Bennett. A positive attitude plays a major part in fighting this you know!”
“A bit more positive? Have you read my chart lady? I’m dying. I have lung cancer,” he sternly said as he looked at me and rolled his eyes at her pie in the sky statement.
At least he still had his sarcasm.
Hours earlier, the ER doctor admitted my father and he was moved up into a private room on the eighth floor. He and his wife spent all of Saturday afternoon and evening in the Emergency Room, waiting – and thinking that he was suffering from a severe case of pneumonia, or possibly even bronchitis.
Yet I believe my father knew all along something much worse was going on inside his overly abused body. When he started to vomit black – come on.
He had to know.
When the preliminary test results came back a few hours later, the worst of their fears were realized and for my father and his wife, the grieving process had officially begun.
The cancer was terminal and it was everywhere.
My sister called me crying on my cell phone, right after church, probably around 12:20 pm and told me Daddy was in the hospital with lung cancer and to get there immediately. Upon hearing the news, I felt as if someone punched me in my gut and I couldn’t breathe. I told her I was on my way.
Instead of going out with the family to Bertucci’s for an enjoyable Sunday afternoon lunch as planned, I dropped Irene and the kids off at home and drove straight to Bridgeport. Irene graciously offered to go with me and have my mother-in-law watch the children, but she knew I probably would want to do this on my own.
She was right.
As the nurse proceeded to poke and prod my ailing father and ask him a laundry list of medical questions, memories of the past 40 plus years of me and my Dad, who rarely got along, began to flood my mind. I became so overwhelmed with grief and emotion that I had to excuse myself from the room.
I stepped out into the cold, effulgent hallway and stood just a foot or two away from my father’s door and cried.
Please Lord. Not again. Not now.
How I missed my mother and wished she was there to hold and comfort me and make everything alright.
An older woman with glasses peered up from behind the floor’s main nursing station. She looked in my direction and tried to extend a compassionate smile before she slowly sunk back down and disappeared. I wondered how many times a day she saw this picture.
Two large automatic doors to my right slowly swung open unannounced as a mother, who was holding her two small children’s hands, frantically entered the cancer ward. The little boy carried a small vase with three red carnations, as his sister who appeared to be no older than four or five, held tightly on to a silver metallic mylar Get Well balloon.
The little girl innocently, yet rudely, stared at me as she walked by and without reservation loudly questioned, “Mommy, why is that man crying? Is his grandpa sick, too?”
The mother, caught off guard and obviously embarrased, shushed her daughter and offered me a look of apology and condolence, before hurrying the child along her way saying, “Don’t stare. That’s not nice!”
As if she didn't hear word that was just said, the little girl continued to fix her eyes on me until she, her mother and brother entered a room three or four doors down past my father’s on the left. The ribbon slipped through her fingers and the balloon got caught outside of the door and slowly started to float toward the ceiling. The mother rushed back into the hallway and grabbed it just in time, and hurried back to her ailing loved one.
Dazed and lost in the valley of my racing mind, I carelessly wiped my swollen eyes on the outside of my shirt sleeve and tried to regain my composure. I hesitantly made my way back to my father’s bedside.
The nurse was almost finished.
Although he was a clown and jokester and always flirted with the ladies, my father wasn’t joking around this time. I knew from the unaccustomed scared and confused look on his face, that deep down, he knew his imminent fate. No one could have ever predicted though that in four short days, he would be gone.
I tried to force a smile, as I looked upon him – weak and tired, propped up in the hospital bed, sporting his signature, out of date large glasses from the 1980’s and draped in a very uncomfortable and unflattering hospital gown. Yet as hard as I tried to induce even a forged grin, an occasional stray tear continued to find its way down the side of my face. I didn’t want him to see me cry, as I didn’t want to upset him anymore than he was. My father had a very hard time expressing emotion and being in the presence of those who did.
My stomach was wrapped in pretzel knots as my father, who was just three months shy of turning 70, lay there helpless and defeated in a dimly lit room at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
Bob Bennett – the man who accomplished and did anything he ever set his mind to – had given up. My father lost any bit of hope he had and his will to live was gone. He was resigned to the fact that this story could only end one way – and almost prophetically, it would.
“Just ring the buzzer there on that controller if you need me for anything at all Mr. Bennett,” the nurse instructed as she grabbed her clip board to leave the room.
“Anything?” my father jokingly jested as he smiled at her.
He somehow mustered enough strength to make one final sexual innuendo and a fool out of himself for the last time. For some reason unbeknownst to everyone, my father believed he was a Don Juan with the ladies – right up until the very end.
“Get some rest Mr. Bennett,” answered the nurse, completely ignoring his comment and clearly cutting him some slack due to the circumstances at hand. She smiled at me and shook her head as she left the room.
I held my lighthearted rebuke until the nurse was gone.
“What a dirty old man you are!” I said as we both laughed, knowing all along my father was joking, yet still shocked by his inappropriateness and lack of couth.
I have to admit though I was relieved that something broke the deep, tense atmosphere within the room that day. My father was never one to be serious and always opted for kidding around.
“Hey, I got nothing to lose by asking – right?” my father stated with the most serious look on his face, making his insinuation even funnier, raising his black bushy eyebrows as he spoke.
We both laughed until my father started to cough again, this time it being more intense and not sounding like anything I ever heard before. One hand covered his mouth as his other applied pressure to his chest. He was unquestionably in a lot of pain.
After a few minutes when his coughing fit subsided, my father looked at me with complete seriousness, paused for a moment and then bluntly stated, “Stevie, this isn’t good.”
My heart broke by his candid confession and I could barely get the words out.
“I know Dad.”
My sentiments couldn’t be constrained any longer. However this time, I didn’t leave. I moved my chair close up against my father’s bed and tightly grasped his warm, sweaty hand. I buried my face in my arm on his covers and just wept.
My father gently squeezed my hand once or twice acknowledging my anguish – a major milestone for the man who refused to feel. We both remained that way in silence for quite some time.
I may have questioned my love for my father throughout the years, but now, I knew the harrowing certainty and depth of it.
* * *
Over the next few days, weeks, months and even years after my father’s passing, my mind has spun out of control with thoughts, questions, memories, nightmares, stories, tales and even what if’s?
In the end, there was no question that I loved my father and that he loved me.
However, that wasn’t always the case.
I never felt the freedom to divulge or disclose my complete story – until now.
For the sake of my kids, future generations of the Bennett family and for the millions of other adult children around the world who may not have had that ideal or perfect relationship with a parent – this book is for you. I also share my story with all those who will listen.
I know this task set before me is going to be extremely difficult, for over the last four and a half decades, I shut the door to my past and locked away so many painful and traumatic memories, emotions and family secrets. The mere thought of opening that door is like whacking a hornet's nest. Yet I know it is something that I must do in order to have the freedom to move forward and onward with my life.
Facing past demons and exposing the skeletons will finally put to rest the burdens I have carried for all of these years. Writing this book will undoubtedly be a sage journey for me – a therapeutic, cleansing one at that. I also know in the end, it will all be well worth it.
I want to take this opportunity now to apologize in advance to any readers who may be offended by some of the language used in this book. I am not a promoter of profanity nor do I ever use it in my own vocabulary. However, to whitewash this fact away from my family, who could barely get away from not using the “f” word in any daily conversation, would do a disservice and injustice to my story. It cannot be sugarcoated or overlooked.
Please know that I have refused to and refrained from using the “f” word anywhere in this book and have been extremely cautious and sparse in my choice and usage of such questionable and controversial verbiage. Thank you in advance for your understanding.
Finally, throughout these past 47 years of my life, through all the experiences and challenges I have been through, the obstacles that I have overcome, my successes and my failures, the happy times and the sad, and with all the wisdom I have gained and lessons I have learned both great and small… the most profound and undeniable truth that I have come to humbly respect and accept in life, is everything must change.
Stephen Bennett, August 19, 2010
