Firsts and lasts

I love playing golf. It's a perfect game for me because it does not require me to find someone to play with. I'm a natural introvert and never really good at getting a bunch of people to play sports with me. As a kid, I spent hours playing baseball in the front yard by myself. My friends on my street didn't wake up until noon and I would just hit the ball as far as I could and chase the ball around the yard. The neighbors probably thought I was psychotic, playing with my imaginary friends. When I finally discovered golf in medical school, I realized you could hit the ball over and over again and not chase it. It's called a driving range.

I just realized I haven't played a round of golf since the day before my daughter Karissa passed away. That was just 8 weeks ago. I made a tee time to play with my father-in-law tomorrow morning. He's been taking golf lessons and had been looking forward to playing with me with his new and improved swing. It seems like there's more and more of these firsts that are happening, and yet there are more to come that I'm not looking forward to. Of course it's a normal part of getting back to living life after tragedy. As a doctor I have spent many nights memorizing the stages of grief, learning the DSM-IV classifications for grief, learning how to treat it with medication and listening and trying and put myself in the shoes of people who are going through the death of a loved one. I know it's normal to commemorate these little milestones. It's just hard to have it happen to you. It's more difficult to watch it happen to your spouse.

Time usually passes quickly for me. I normally look at the calendar with amazement as it seems like months just pass me by. For some reason, the last time I played golf seems like 2 years ago. I don't know what it is but it seems like time has just slowed to a standstill. It makes me sad to think the memory of that last day of her life is passing away as well. I've been sitting here trying to remember everything I can about that day. What follows is the stream of consciousness that came out of my brain as I was remembering as much of that day as I could.

I remember taking Karissa to her special preschool that morning, excited to play golf for the last time before I had to get back to work after vacation. I took her backpack and her lunch box and set them on the counter, she just started playing with the other kids unaware that I was leaving. She never was much for separation anxiety. I walked out the door and saw another parent walking in and smiled. I played at a new course in Lake Elsinore that day. I don't remember what I scored, but remember needing a par to shoot 39 on the back nine. Instead I quadruple bogeyed and was cussing at myself. I had a tuna sandwich at the clubhouse (a big deal because they didn't have any vegetarian food). I remember picking Karissa up at preschool and she had been changed out of her clothes because her clothes got wet. She played in the water her last day of life. She loved the water. She was tired on the way home, staring out the window, but didn't sleep. Adrianne was so excited to see her when we got home. It was the first time she had been to school in 10 days and Adrianne always felt uncomfortable being that far away from her. She was kind of disappointed that Karissa was in somebody else’s baggy clothes. Adrianne just loved having Karissa in cute clothes and I must admit these were pretty ugly, but I didn't really notice. I was worn out and sat at the computer reading the news about the Tour de France which had just started and caught up on my lab results and x-ray reports from the last 10 days so I wouldn't have to do it at work in the morning. I know Karissa had a bath that night, but I don't remember much else. I was kind of in my own world. Adrianne gave Karissa her medicine and I remember sitting at the computer and hearing screaming downstairs. I ran down and Karissa had put a bottle cap in her mouth and Adrianne couldn't get it out. Adrianne was frantic and said she's going to "choke to death." It seemed kind of an over-dramatic reaction at the time. I pulled open Karissa's mouth and removed the cap and Karissa and Adrianne calmed down. Karissa went to bed at 8 PM or so and woke up at 10 PM babbling for a few minutes and fell back a sleep just as quickly. Adrianne went to bed and I stayed up reading. When I went to bed at 1 AM, Adrianne was having a hard time sleeping and went in to check on Karissa, who was sleeping peacefully. I fell asleep listening to Mike Gallagher speaking about the emotions and difficulty of doing his first radio show after his wife passed away on June 29, 2008. That's the last moment of my life that I remember my daughter alive.