{"id":247,"date":"2018-11-16T19:25:45","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T19:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/?p=247"},"modified":"2018-11-16T19:25:45","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T19:25:45","slug":"oak-leaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/oak-leaf\/","title":{"rendered":"Oak Leaf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Oak Leaf<\/strong><br \/>\nI didn\u2019t get there in time for Dad\u2019s surgery.<br \/>\nDrove along the interstate watching<br \/>\nwinter oak leaves hang on in the wind.<br \/>\nThe next day, he was pretty out of it on morphine;<br \/>\nthought my brother had killed himself<br \/>\nand that it was WWII.<br \/>\nI tried to orient him. Watched the therapists<br \/>\nput him in a chair. I knew he<br \/>\nwould never walk again.<\/p>\n<p>We have been trying to call you.<br \/>\nI had been in the shower.<br \/>\nYou need to come now.<br \/>\nDecisions have to be made.<\/p>\n<p>He was on maximum blood pressure meds,<br \/>\non a breathing machine sucking for air,<br \/>\nhe looked like he was hurting.<\/p>\n<p>Dad has a living will.<br \/>\nMy brother is 10 hours away,<br \/>\nlet me call him. Then please turn the drugs<br \/>\nand breathing machine off.<\/p>\n<p>His breathing remained regular<br \/>\nand blood pressure low,<br \/>\nI didn\u2019t think he would last long.<br \/>\nTold him it was okay to leave. <\/p>\n<p>He hung there in the wind<br \/>\nuntil my brother came.<br \/>\nThen his breathing got irregular,<br \/>\nhis pressure lower, and he let go.<\/p>\n<p>Broad River Review<br \/>\n2\/2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oak Leaf I didn\u2019t get there in time for Dad\u2019s surgery. Drove along the interstate watching winter oak leaves hang on in the wind. The next day, he was pretty out of it on morphine; thought my brother had killed himself and that it was WWII. I tried to orient him. Watched the therapists put&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/oak-leaf\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Oak Leaf<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-published-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}