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I went to the door to the ER, trying to see where they had taken Sean. A nurse saw me and came to open the door. I introduced myself and said I was Sean's younger brother.
"Where are they taking him?"
"Right into the OR," she replied. "We'll keep you updated."
I nodded and reluctantly closed the door.
My father was wheezing on his way to the seating area in the ER. Lugging around the bottle of oxygen was too much for him and he passed out, crumpling in his chair, his head falling forward.
I called the triage nurse, and she came around the corner to where my father slumped in his chair.
"He has COPD?" she asked, feeling his pulse.
"Emphysema," I said. "He had a heart attack two years ago."
She called two orderlies over and they took my father to a room in the ER. I went inside with him, sitting at his side, waiting to find out if he’d had another heart attack or simply passed out due to stress.
For the next hour, I sat in his room with my head in my hands while they attached him to various machines to monitor his heart and breathing, his oxygen and pulse.
Later, an ER doc came into the room where I sat to give me an update. Sean was in a coma, his neck immobilized, his brain swelling.
The ER doc pulled me into the hall outside my dad's room.
"Your brother likely won't survive the next hour," he said, his voice grim. "If he does, he'll most likely have permanent damage to his spinal cord."
"If he survives, he'll be paralyzed?"
"Yes. Quadriplegic. That is, if he regains consciousness."
As soon as he said that, I knew Sean would die.
Conor was beside himself, a basket case, sitting alone in the ER waiting room.
Together, with Sean in surgery and my dad in the ER, we began our vigil.
After Sean’s surgery was over and he was taken to the ICU, I spent all night watching him, listening to the hiss of the ventilator, the beep-beep of the monitors. I knew in my gut that he wouldn't make it.
My father stabilized and was discharged from the ER in the early evening after several tests showed he had no more damage to his heart. He didn’t want to leave the hospital, and so he, Conor, and I sat beside the bed, taking turns holding Sean's hand. Finally, the doc in charge of the transplant team came to us, because my brother had indicated he wanted to be a donor when he died.
"What's the bottom line?" I asked. After my tour of duty in the Middle East, I was used to seeing death. "Does he have any chance of recovering?"
"I'm very sorry, but no," the doc replied. "His stats indicate he's not going to recover. His brain scan, his blood work…" He shook his head. "I'm very sorry."
My father bowed his head, pressing Sean's hand against it
I nodded. "Then we should take him off life support."
My father actually sobbed at that. It was the first time I'd heard him cry since I was a child at my grandfather's funeral.
My own eyes were brimming and all I really wanted to do was run down the hall and out of the hospital, escape all of it, but I had to be strong for my father and younger brother.
I had to be the oldest son now.
Later, after they took Sean off life support and after we all said our goodbyes, I drove my father and brother back to our apartment over the gym. We entered the building, which had been quickly closed for the day, and there, still on the floor where he'd fallen, was Sean's blood—a dark red smear from someone's hasty attempt to clean it after we'd left with the ambulance.
"Oh, God," my father said, his voice shaking. "Someone should have cleaned that up."
"I'll take care of it," I said quietly.
