A Dad Story

The Heart of My Father
for Dad on his 90^th birthday

Over and again

Tone Codispoti, age 77

you asked your cardiologist 

          for a pig heart.
You were only half kidding.

At 77 years old
it was a habit to read
articles of cutting edge 

          procedures
in Diabetes Forecast
and watch the evening news
when Peter Jennings 

          and Dr. Tim Johnson
introduced stories
of medical breakthroughs.

It turns out we humans
          are brothers to pigs
where our hearts are concerned.
Already common,
leaky human valves are replaced
          with pig parts.
God knows, your valve leaked profusely,
backing up into your chest.
With hope and wonder
you told stories of experiments
where entire human hearts were
being replaced with those
of our piggy friends.

Your heart had seen too much.
Too much sorrow at the loss
of both sister and father
when you were fourteen.

Too much ache and wonder on Tinian
when war brought the atomic bomb
onto the tarmac
and you sneaked aboard a plane
to get a peek.

So much pride

as each of your eleven children were born.
Then rent for the two babies
who didn’t survive.
How could your heart take it,
carrying your bloody blue son away
wrapped in a sheet,
leaving your wife grieving in bed,
alone after the miscarriage?

Your heart swelled
in pride, watching
the first of your offspring
accept his USC bachelor’s degree.
Then be ripped
as that same man lay stiff,
a gurney bearing the weight
of a body thrown from a Jeep,
smashed by a drunk driver.
Anguish bled from your lips
in the cry,
“My son! My son!”

This same heart grew healthier
driving alone
from southern California to Moscow, Idaho.
You quit smoking
cold turkey
on that journey to a fresh chapter in your life.

Your heart floated with laughter
as you raised, in turn,
each infant grandchild high
over your head,
then slowly lowered
them close to your grin,
only to raise and lower and grin again.
It guffawed
as your eighth granddaughter
sat in your lap,
slapping your bald head
with palms and kisses

in a way your own brood
never dared touch you.
Your pulse echoed
your chortle
as grandchild #16 chirped,
“Grandpa, I have a question…”

The vision of building a new business
swelled your heart
with possibility.
Years later, that business sold,
attempting a transition into retirement,
that faulty valve gushed
as “My Emily,” succumbed
to a failed kidney.

Further trauma arrived at Halloween.
The first of your heart attacks
sent you to a Spokane emergency room for a day.
I stayed by your side, massaging Lubriderm
into your cracked and calloused feet,
speaking heart-to-heart
of the pain you inflicted
in my childhood. We offered
each other apology, forgiveness
and redemption.

Three months later it flooded over the coffin
of your eldest son
as you stood alone in grief
sighing, “Oh, Pablo.”

My brother fought a long battle with cancer.
Hard as it was to see him
lying silent, face shrunken and sallow,
torso swollen with the deadly mass,
dressed in Dodger blue,
you accepted the end of his pain.

You never did get that pig heart.
The doc said
your body couldn’t take it.
Your days of experimenting with life
were over.

A week after your boy’s funeral,
your heart gave out completely.
You landed in the same hospital
where three floors away,
five of your children entered the world.

Now it was our turn to visit

to pace
to watch
to wait
to hope
to fear
to speed to when the call came:
Emergency Bypass Surgery.

You never quite awakened
from that anesthetic,
though you did hiccup for hours,
your fingers working to squeeze mine
as I sat vigil.

After you died,
I peeked under your gown
to see staples in your chest,
so insensitive to your desire
for a renewed heart
ready to reconcile with my siblings.
I placed my hand on your sternum
in silent prayer,
then kissed your cooling forehead
in farewell,
my own heart doubled
over, punched in the gut.

.