Proof of Life

It was 9:30pm, late March, and the street was empty.

The air was a perfectly cool temperature, just the right amount of damp for the emotions of the evening.  He turned on his headphones and put one earbud in.  He left the other ear open, trying to achieve the right balance between soundtrack and situational awareness.

They step out onto the sidewalk and Mollie wants to head downhill.  He holds the leash tight and stops her.

Downhill is little but an unfinished 12 story building and 4th Ave.  He never liked walking down there with the traffic and garbage, it wasn’t as nice as uphill toward the parks.

The Avenue was dotted with choke points and hazards as the large buildings with covered sidewalks that jogged around the building’s main beams and the construction materials  that now sat idle as the jobs had shut down.

He again wondered why they didn’t call finished buildings “builts” as the work was finished and no longer in progress.

The man was used to these thoughts coming seemingly out of nowhere.

Greenwood Brooklyn was a transitioning neighborhood, especially along 4th Ave, from houses built a century ago for the stevedores working the docks by the harbor to large apartment buildings that line 4th Ave.  All the new construction built to accommodate the housing crunch,  the City had eased the zoning on 4th in hopes of steering people towards the train lines that ran below the Ave.   He had once attended a conference about solar energy at the Museum of Natural History and there had been an informative presentation by the previous mayor’s people about where and why they were changing zoning in an attempt to lower the carbon footprint of the city.

He thought about how both public transportation and carbon footprints were ideas that had been put on pause during this time of crisis.

Mollie pulled at her leash and she leaned back trying to go downhill.

“Come on, Mol” he muttered as he tugged harder.

Mollie gave him one look and then eased up.  She broke into a trot as she headed uphill and passed him to take the lead.

It was 9:30pm, late March, and the street was empty.
‍

The air was a perfectly cool temperature, just the right amount of damp for the emotions of the evening. He turned on his headphones and put one earbud in. He left the other ear open, trying to achieve the right balance between soundtrack and situational awareness.

  They step out onto the sidewalk and Mollie wants to head downhill.  He holds the leash tight and stops her.

        Downhill is little but an unfinished 12 story building and 4th Ave.  He never liked walking down there with the traffic and garbage, it wasn’t as nice as uphill toward the parks.

        The Avenue was dotted with choke points and hazards as the large buildings with covered sidewalks that jogged around the building’s main beams and the construction materials  that now sat idle as the jobs had shut down.

He again wondered why they didn’t call finished buildings “builts” as the work was finished and no longer in progress.

         The man was used to these thoughts coming seemingly out of nowhere.

         Greenwood, Brooklyn was a transitioning neighborhood, especially along 4th Ave, from houses built a century ago for the stevedores working the docks by the harbor to large apartment buildings that line 4th Ave.  All the new construction built to accommodate the housing crunch,  the City had eased the zoning on 4th in hopes of steering people towards the train lines that ran below the Ave.   He had once attended a conference about solar energy at the Museum of Natural History and there had been an informative presentation by the previous mayor’s people about where and why they were changing zoning in an attempt to lower the carbon footprint of the city.
‍

He thought about how both public transportation and carbon footprints were ideas that had been put on pause during this time of crisis.

Mollie pulled at her leash and she leaned back trying to go downhill.

“Come on, Mol” he muttered as he tugged harder.

Mollie gave him one look and then eased up.  She broke into a trot as she headed uphill and passed him to take the lead.

They walked up past the newly finished building on the corner. Ten stories of blandness that had replaced the Polish grocery store known for its deep stock of microbrewed beers and homemade kielbasa.

Mollie liked to pee on the fresh concrete, leaving a trail that slid down the hill.

“Good girl. Good Girl,” He bent down and ruffled the fur behind her collar for positive reinforcement. Mollie leaned into the scratch and then shook off the pet. Her collection of tags, ID, City License, and Rabies shot jingled as she shook. Her feet took a moment to steady, and then she pushed on.

At the corner, Mollie waited. This was always a high point for her. This busy intersection had been a reliable spot for attention. Children, other dogs. Strangers have always wanted to pet the happy puppy.

Looking up the street, it seems darker than he remembers. Is it his imagination? Mollie sniffed around a spot, shifting for a better angle; suddenly, the lights from the Photo store sprang to life. Practically blinding, the LEDs must have been on a sensor. “Gyawk,” He let out a small yelp.

Tonight, the intersection was empty. Mollie looked in either direction, but no one was coming. Off in the distance, 10 blocks or more, the lights of an ambulance twirled like small jewels. Otherwise there was nothing going on.
‍
‍

They passed the first of several trees on the block. Someone had taken over this patch of earth and planted daffodils and irises. The daffodils had come in and were looking great. After 9/11, Dutch Tulip Mogul Hans van Waardenburg had gifted the city a million Daffodil bulbs, and in the spring of 2002, the city's parks were filled with beds of yellow flowers. The stalks were long and thin, holding up bright yellow blossoms that waved in the breeze. The irises had yet to bloom, but the soil had the smell of spring, and the tree buds were just about to burst open. He breathed in the smell of the soil and remembered that loss of the sense of smell was reported as an early symptom. So far, so good.

“Come on, Mol” he tugged again at the leash. She pulled at the harness and kept barking. He shortened the leash and grabbed the second handle a foot from the clip; with it, he had the mechanical advantage to steer the riled puppy back on course, and they made it across the intersection before the light changed.

The need to get across more from deep-felt social pressure than from any traffic waiting, as there was none. They collected themselves on the other side, and he let out the leash again. Mollie once again took the lead and headed up the hill.
,

Mollie barked after them. He looked both ways, up and down 5th to an otherwise empty avenue and crossed. Mollie stayed back to bark at the delivery guys a couple more times.
‍

Out of habit, he still waited for the light to change. As the light went green, Mollie tried to pull into the intersection.
‍

“Sit, Sit!” he pulled on the leash and she backed up and sat down. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen them, a couple of masked delivery guys coming up fast on e-bikes. They zipped through the intersection in the bike lane ignoring the red light. These masked men owned the streets now, the old rules did not apply. He recognized that they were doing a great service and putting their lives at risk, so he tempered his flash of anger and let it go.
‍

They walked up past the newly finished building on the corner.  Ten stories of blandness that had replaced the Polish grocery store known for its deep stock of microbrewed beers and homemade kielbasa.

Mollie liked to pee on the fresh concrete leaving a trail that slid down the hill.

“Good girl.  Good Girl”  He bent down and ruffled the fur behind her collar for positive reinforcement.  Mollie leaned into the scratch and then shook off the pet.  Her collection of tags, ID, City License and Rabies shot jingled as she shook.  Her feet took a moment to steady and then she pushed on.

At the corner, Mollie waited.  This was always a high point for her.  This busy intersection had been a reliable spot for attention.  Children, other dogs.  Strangers have always wanted to pet the happy puppy.

Tonight the intersection was empty.  Mollie looked in either direction, but no one was coming.  Off in the distance, 10 blocks or more, the lights of an ambulance twirled like small jewels.  Otherwise there was nothing going on.

Out of habit, he still waited for the light to change.  As the light went green, Mollie tried to pull into the intersection.
“Sit, Sit!”  he pulled on the leash and she backed up and sat down.  Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen them, a couple of masked delivery guys coming up fast on e-bikes.  They zipped through the intersection in the bike lane ignoring the red light.  These masked men owned the streets now, the old rules did not apply.  He recognized that they were doing a great service and putting their lives at risk, so he tempered his flash of anger and let it go.

Mollie barked after them.  He looked both ways, up and down 5th to an otherwise empty avenue and crossed.  Mollie stayed back to bark at the delivery guys a couple more times.

“Come on, Mol” he tugged again at the leash.  She pulled at the harness and kept barking.  He shortened the leash and grabbed the second handle a foot from the clip, with it he had the mechanical advantage to steer the riled puppy back on course and they made it across the intersection before the light changed.  The need to get across more out of deep-felt social pressure than any traffic waiting, as there was none.  They collected themselves on the other side and he let out the leash again.  Mollie once again took the lead and headed up the hill.

They passed the first of several trees on the block.  Someone had taken over this patch of earth and planted daffodils and irises.  The daffodils had come in and were looking great.  After 9/11 Dutch Tulip Mogul, Hans van Waardenburg had gifted the city a million Daffodil bulbs and in the spring of 2002, the city parks were filled with beds of the yellow flowers.  The stalks were long and thin holding up bright yellow blossoms that waved in the breeze.  The irises had yet to bloom, but the soil had the smell of spring and the tree buds were just about to burst open.  He breathed in the smell of the soil and remembered that the loss of sense of smell was reported to be an early symptom.  So far, so good. Looking up the street it seems darker than he remembers, is it his imagination?  Mollie sniffed around a spot, shifting for a better angle; suddenly the lights from the Photo store sprang to life.  Practically blinding, the LEDs must have been on a sensor.  “Gyawk” He let out a small yelp.  Startled by the light, he had to take a second and take a long breath and look around.  To both check his surroundings and to see if anyone had witnessed his minor freak out.  “Come on, Mol.”  he tugged at the leash and they continued uphill.   Sensor after sensor tripped on and front yards became illuminated.  He would often get home late from work and could never remember seeing sensors come on.  He wondered when the last time someone walked by.

As he walked along in the damp night the triggers varied and he had learned to just ride out the emotions as they flowed through him.

This wasn’t his first quarantine.  Not even his second.  The first had been when his older daughter had come home from 5 months in a NICU. With 3 months of a ventilator and one of a cannula, the risk of the SRV virus was serious.  They had stayed away from everyone and he had kept his work close in the bathroom. And washed his hands vigorously before touching his daughter.  No family had seen her for a few months and once a month she would get a shot of SRV antibodies to support her immune system.  The shots from the large needle were painful and the giant tears would cling to her eyelashes before they rolled down her cheeks.  By the third shot, she would start crying when she entered the exam room.  Looking around she seemed to remember what was coming.

The second quarantine was during his chemo.  In 2017 he had been diagnosed with Mediastinal B Cell Lymphoma.  A large mass the size of an avocado had formed above his heart from a blood-borne cancer.  They had removed the mass when they had thought it was another condition and only after the biopsy had they understood what they were dealing with.
Through six rounds of chemotherapy, he had to maintain biological vigilance.  Each round would leave him with zero white blood for about a week.  A state called neutropenia, where even the common cold can put you in the hospital.  It was a Neulasta patch that brought back his white blood cells.  A 45-minute injection of the drug, worn as a patch that was timed to go off 27 hours after a course of chemo.  A modern medical marvel, it allowed him to stay home while the drug supercharged his bone marrow to surge with white blood cells.  The drug made his bones ache and his sternum feel on fire.  It was only during his third course that he found out that Claritin, an allergy drug he had previously taken for hayfever helped to ease the discomfort.  After that it was bearable.

But the quarantine was much the same.  With the exception of trips to the cancer center he didn’t leave the house, barely left his bedroom.  No mass transit, no grocery stores, no church.

His wife had slept on the couch downstairs and their then two-year-old slept with her.  After 5 months it was near impossible to get the little one to sleep by herself.  Even now, at 6, she’d slip into the bed late at night.  These days he didn’t mind as much as in the past.

Like clockwork, she would wake up and ask if she could come into their bed.  There would be varying degrees of distress based on nightmares or not.  She had become obsessed with death.  Lately, She had come to fear death and didn’t want to become a “skeleton”.  An idea taken from the film “Coco” he was sure.  Trying to explain death to a six year old was hard.  Especially when it seemed they were trying to hide from it.

He just let her in the bed and made sure she was covered up and comfortable.  She always wanted to hold his hand.  Between the cancer and this he was certain she was gonna have some issues later.  But that was for later.  Now it was just trying to make her feel as safe as she could.

In the past, the younger one would often talk about her brother.  Especially to strangers in a Starbucks or at a playground.

“She is at it again.”  The Older one would say rolling her eyes with a look that belied her eleven years on the earth.  She motions over to her younger sister who is telling her new friend, that she had just met, how  much she missed her brother and that he was with her grandfather and grandmother now, both of whom she also missed very much.  And that her older sister and her brother were “in their mother’s belly at the same time but that her brother was real real sick and now he was with her grandfather and grandmother.”

It would lead to an awkward exchange with a parent trying to explain that her brother,  maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather had passed away before she was born, and this was an understandable way for her to work it out.  Her matter of factness about the information was always the toughest part of the conversation.  Oblivious to the scar she picked at.

Mollie jerked the leash and pulled back in the other direction.  He hadn’t noticed that she had stopped to sniff at the iron fence in front of a house.  He waited for a little bit.  He looked up into a house.  The giant TV glowed in the dark.  Chasing shadows all over the room.  He sat and watched the shadows move around for a bit.  The back of a  head popped up into view and they walked to another room.  Startled, he pulls at Mollie’s leash.

“Let’s go, Mol.”

Mollie fights at first but gives in and then trots ahead to take the lead.  They head across the overpass to the Prospect Expressway.  There are still some cars traveling at a good clip up to Ocean Blvd and the heart of Brooklyn.  The other lanes, toward Manhattan are empty.  This direction is usually backed up as the expressway ends in an offramp to the Battery Tunnel or the BQE.

The rhythmic sound of cars whooshing below reminded him of the sounds of the NICU.  The ventilator, much in demand these days.  When they had removed the tube from his son's throat it was the first sound he ever heard him make.  They had taken his son off the ventilator and he was held in the man’s wife’s arms.

Their son was the twin to their oldest daughter.  They had been born 3 months early.  At 25 weeks 6 days gestation.  His lungs were not fully developed.  They both were immediately put on ventilators but his daughter was more stable.  After a day she was able to breath the equivalent of room with the aid of the ventilator.  They’d even gotten her down to a cannula, a small tube in her nose.  She could only be on it for about an hour, her little body didn’t have the strength to breathe on her own and added oxygen would help her development.

His son on the other hand, was not ready for this world.   The had tried to stabilize his breathing and his blood pressure had spiked up and down causing intravascular hemorrhaging, something akin to a stroke, in both hemispheres of the brain. Leading towards paralysis and major cognitive impairment.
His son fought the ventilator and they had put it on a paralytic.    For two weeks they tried to stabilize him, with a heroic effort by Nurses and Doctors.
In the second week  Necrotizing Enterocolitis, (NEC) a bacterial infection of the intestines that leads to perforations of the bowel and infection of the colon set in.  His digestive tract was dying.  He couldn’t breath on his own.  Would never be able to eat food.  Despite his limited motor functions he had pulled the tube out twice.

The Man and his wife had sat next to each other.  The man had a small speaker playing a playlist he had made the night before.  After two weeks in an incubator, his wife held their son in her arms for the first time.  His tiny body, just skin and bones.  His face was marked from all the tape that had been on his face holding the intubation tube in.  It was only out from under the LED light and into the daylight that came in from the windows of the private room that they realized their son's hair was red.  His wife cradled his head, about the size of a tennis ball in her hand as he read “Guess How Much I Love You.”

“‘That’s good hopping’, Thought Little NutBrown Hare, ‘I wish I could hop like that.’”   His voice cracked and the words blurred behind the tears in his eyes until they fell like big drops and soaked into the soft paper.

“Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves.  He leaned over him and kissed him goodnight.    Then he lay down close by.”

“And whispered with a smile, ‘I love you right to the moon and back.’”

He flattened the page.  Trying to push some of his tears off the paper.  He slowly closed  the book and laid it on his lap.

They sat and listened at their son fighting to take a breath.  He held his son’s tiny hand.  Looking down it was impossibly small.  The bones and flesh with no meat looked too long and skinny for the palm.  The entire hand was smaller than his finger tip.

The man’s thumb gently rubbed the back of his son’s hand.

They sat in listening to the music.  After 10 minutes the Dr. leaned in and listened to their son’s heart.

She leaned back, shaking her head to the nurse.  So they waited some more.  The music played and his wife stroked their son's hair.  And time moved by very slowly.   After a while the Dr. leaned in again and listened.  She leaned back.

“It will be a little bit more.”  She said softly.

It went on like this for what seemed an eternity.  He knew he should feel grateful for whatever time he had.  But at this moment he wanted to run screaming out of the room.  He hadn’t expected it to take so long.  He didn’t know what it would take, but after awkwardly starting the playlist over again, whatever space or energy he had hoped to create was drained.  Trying to manage the unmanageable.

Four more times the Dr would lean in with a stethoscope and listen to their son’s heart.  Every time it would continue to beat, albeit fainter and fainter.

Every fiber of his being wanted to be outside, out of this time and place.  But he couldn’t leave his wife.  Or this room.  Or this time.

“They are much farther apart now.” She said.

In his head he suddenly could hear Eric Idle saying  “Right, Shouldn’t be but a bit more.”

“Any…. day now.”

The image of Eric sliding in and out to listen to the heartbeat, almost made him laugh out loud.
“Yes, yes, no, no, sorry.  Thought we had it there for a moment.”

Finally she leaned in and let out a long sigh.

She nodded to his wife.  Who handed her son to the family priest, who blessed him and held him up to God, which both struck the man as beautiful and reminded him of the Lion King.  He shook his head trying to keep  “Circle of Life” from rising  in his head.

The only other thing he really remembers about that time is walking out of the room to both his brothers rushing to hug him.  They had both cut their vacations short to be there and his face was sandwiched in between their stubbly faces.
“Yeesh, you think one of you would have shaved.”  He said as they held him tight.

Crossing the Expressway he came to the small park that ran along the north side of the highway.  It snaked up the hill.  The lampposts gave small globes of greenish amber light.  The park was empty as they walked uphill.

A delivery guy swung around the path and sped towards them.  There was plenty of room on the broad brick paved walkway, but the man still pulled Mollie over to the side.

The E bike zipped passed and the man looked after it as it turned the corner.

The man let out a sigh and walked Mollie over to the nearest patch of grass to his house.
The spring grass was coming in thick clumps of crab grass between bald patches of dense soil.  Over the past few weeks the grass had started to really thicken, despite the heavy traffic of dog joggers and dogs out for their walks.

The man let out the leash and Mollie jumped around from one clump to another.  Sniffing all the neighbors she missed.  She chewed at the thick grass which looked black in the old sodium lamp posts.  She nibbled at the base of each clump.  The man let her get a couple of bites in and then pulled her off.  She frantically sniffed around for more.

The two meandered around for a bit he let her roam around for a little bit.  Until the dark and the quiet became too much and he urged her on up the hill.

Normally they would have followed the park all the way to 7th Ave but tonight he decided to duck out where 17th St bends and became Calder Pl.  The short street, barely half a block met up with Prospect Ave.  Normally a busy street with a straight shot to the Battery Tunnel, tonight it was still.

He looked up and down the Ave.  Down below, near 4th Ave another ambulance was parked throwing red and white light out into the night.

They crossed the empty street and headed back over the Expressway.  Turning down 17th towards home, he hoped to get Mollie to go to the bathroom by her favorite spot.

Mollie picked up the pace and pulled on her leash as they got closer.  When they arrived at her spot she sniffed wildly for a bit and then got down to work.

“Good girl!  Good girl!” he said.

He looked across the street and saw a neighbor also walking her dog.  She was wearing a mask and waiting for her pugadoodle to finish up.

‘There was always something weird about making eye contact with someone while your dog is doing their business’ he thought.  He awkwardly waved to the woman.

She waved and it seemed that she smiled.  Hard to tell behind the mask, and the light and distance.

‘I should probably start wearing a mask too.’ he thought.

Looking down he saw that Mollie was finishing up.  He pulled out a little compostable bag that was stored in a bone shaped box that hung from the top of the leash.

The man struggled to get the bag open.  His fingers slid back and forth over the top edge of the bag but failed to get any traction.  Before all this he would have absentmindedly licked his fingers.  But he wasn’t going to do that anymore.  He rubbed it for a good ten seconds before it finally gave way.

He flipped the small bag inside out and put it over his hand like a glove.  He bent down and was struck with a wave of the unctuous smell of Mollie’s deposits.

He smiled to himself. “Don’t have to worry about that.”

The man picked up the droppings.  They were soft and warm.  And he flashed to the first week his wife went back to work after his daughter came home from the hospital.  She made more than he did so they decided that she would work for a bit and he would stay home as the primary parent.

The days had been long and cold.  In the dead of winter it seemed he was awake in the dark more than the daylight.

His daughter was having a hard time digesting the new formula she was on.  As a premie she had been on formula almost from the start, but she had just grown out of the bottled formula and they were trying a new powdered kind.  It made her gassy and she cried and cried.

He would be exhausted. His body was always filled with the pain of trying to shake off the gamma-aminobutyric acid that was coursing through his body; trying to keep him from moving so he could sleep.

His daughter would scream so loud he was afraid the neighbors might call the cops.  This went on for a day or so until he talked to his sister who told him about the bicycle kicks.   He would lay his daughter on her back and peddle her legs in a gentle movement.  He also added rubbing the soles of her feet with his thumbs.  After a few minutes of this she would let out some gas and settle down.   A few more minutes and she would smile.  He would smile back and then realize she wasn’t smiling but  pooping.  She’d make what he came to call her ”Grrrr Face”.  A smiley grimace that let them know she meant business.

This time it was especially stinky.  And messy.
“Holy Cow, Girl!  Jes…”

And he juggled her wriggling body and the sticky pastelike poop. It took several wipes to get her clean and a change of clothes.  Setting her back in her crib, he picked up the folded diaper, trying and failing to not get anything on him.

He walked to the bathroom to throw the diaper out.  He pressed his foot on the trash can, and he paused for a moment.

He held this stinky diaper in his hand.  He could feel the warmth that her body had held in his hand.

‘Proof of Life’

The words rushed through him.  Overwhelmed him.   Tears filled his eyes and rolled down his face.

He felt the damp diaper in his hand.  It had weight, and warmth and it meant that she was alive.  She had survived.

He let the diaper slowly fall in the can and he turned to quickly wash his hands.  He scrubbed away, the way the nurses had shown him.  The way he had done all throughout her NICU stint.  “Front, back, fingers, thumbs.  The foam wrapped around his fingers and washed away anything that had gotten on them.

He looked up at his tear streaked reflection and laughed.   He looked over at his daughter who was laughing at the mobile that hung over her head.

‘You’ll get through this.’  He thought.