He Almost Cut It Off
A True Story
“A daughter may outgrow her father’s lap, but she will never outgrow her father’s heart.”
- Unknown
My father-in-law “Guelo” just made it home. Guelo, pronounced “Way-lo” is Spanish’ slang for Grandpa. Guelo was working on a fence for a family friend. The Houston Texans just lost to the Kansas City Chiefs during the second round of the playoffs and everyone is pretty bummed. Everyone except my daughter, who’s a huge Travis Kelce Taylor Swift fan. Guelo slowly makes his way into the living room as I start explaining how the Texans lost, but he interrupts me and says, “I have some bad news…”
“What happened!?” but I didn’t have to ask after seeing his pale face. He raises his bandaged thumb, “I cut my finger pretty bad!”
My wife, Candy, rushes to him and carefully removes the bandages for a quick inspection. As a former radiographer at an emergency room, she’s no stranger to blood. “Dad! You nearly cut off your thumb! We’re going to the ER right now!”
Meanwhile, my teenage daughter, Alani, and I stay home. We have a Yorkshire Terrier who has to pee every three hours, so someone has to stay home. Alani’s watching a sitcom on her iPad while I keep texting my wife asking for updates. What if he loses his thumb? I start thinking of how difficult life would be without a thumb.
My wife sends me a text, He’s doing okay right now, but he cut through the tendon and into the bone! Hopefully he won’t lose his finger. Before leaving to the ER, I asked Guelo how he nearly cut off his finger. “I don’t remember exactly,” he says. “I cut the last piece of the 4x4 post with a portable bandsaw and felt a little sting. I looked down and there was blood everywhere.”
Despite the unfortunate circumstance, he’s pretty lucky to have his daughter with him in the emergency room. They’re only allowing one family member to accompany him, so my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are waiting in the lobby. At least they’re comforting each other. That’s probably for the best since neither particularly like seeing blood or dangly finger bits.
As I wait for the next update, I ask Alani if she wants to hang out. She looks up, almost annoyed and says, “Sure.”
We consider playing chess, but neither of us feel like using our brains right now. We nearly settled on playing Nintendo, but one of the controllers needs to be charged (like always!). Alani suggests drawing, “Hell yeah! I mean, sure - that sounds good.” She knew I could never turn down drawing together.
“What are you going to draw, Papa Bear?” she asks. I think for a minute. “A crocodile band!” Alani nods with approval as she decides to work on her movie. “I’m going to draw a few scenes from my movie.”
After a few hours, my wife sends me another text. X-rays came in. He nearly cut off his thumb! Don’t worry - the doctor is stitching his thumb back together. It’s pretty cool - kinda reminds me of Sally Skellington from ‘Nightmare before Christmas’.
I sigh with relief. “How’s Guelo?” asks Alani. “He’s going to be just fine,” I assured her. She sighed and went back to her drawing.
It was in that moment that I realize how precious this ‘father and daughter time’ really is.
Candy sends me one final text. We’re all done! I’m exhausted, but it was nice being there for my Dad.
Thanks for reading JUST ONE THING! This was a little departure from my typical newsletter, but nevertheless - hope you liked it!
Poor Guy. Great job writing!