11-25-01

My "underpainting" is progressing, and I'm getting very excited about this painting. I've got a pissy cold right now although Elizabeth's got it worse than me. Another reason I decided to become a vegetarian is for health reasons. I saw my father fall into terrible health later in his life, and I'm going to do everything I can to delay that or prevent it from happening to me.

My father died about two years ago. The doctors, doctors are really fucking useless in many situations, couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. He was in the hospital for almost four months. He'd been spiking a fever over and over again. They thought it might be an infection in his heart, but tests showed it wasn't. They claimed his second kidney transplant wasn't causing it, but if anything did it - I think it was probably that. The fever's slowly melted his mind down, and he wasted away. I saw him once in the hospital, and he recognized me. He was glad to see me, but he couldn't really understand what I was saying to him. I would ask him a question, and he would understand it was a question. He'd attempt to fake an answer, but he wouldn't get it quite right. That broke my heart. My mom was a rock; she was always there, almost every day. She told me that the last word she heard him say was "Enough." And with that, he was gone.

I wasn't very close to my father. I believe he always tried to do right by me and my brother, what he thought was right. Although my brother has a very different impression. But Murray just wasn't a very warm guy. That's another whole story. It was sad to see him waste away, and it was hard to see my mom suffering.