My Father and the Frog

  The night my dad died, my mother and I sat in the waiting room together.  They cleared out all the other visitors so that the doctor could talk to us alone.  He explained that my dad’s heart kept stopping.  They had restarted it six times.  Finally, they had to call it and let him go.  My mother was totally gracious.  She would hold it together in public, and we would cry together in private.  

  Over the next few months I was furious with the doctors.  I knew the anger was normal, yet it persisted.  At the time, all I could think about was how they had zapped my father six times when he was trying to let go.  I couldn’t think of it as anything less than torture.  This stayed with me. 

  I was in college biology the following semester.  One of the first things that we did was to dissect a frog.  This was not any normal backyard frog.  This frog was a foot long, and it lay in a dish in front of me.  The professor led us along cautiously so that we would get the most out of it.  It really didn’t take long before the insides of the frog were exposed.  I don’t know what made me do it, but I placed the flat side of the scalpel on the frog’s heart.  Immediately, it started beating.  I jumped.  This totally freaked me out.  It must have beat 10-15 times before it stopped again.  I put the scalpel back again.  Again it started beating.  This time it only went 7 or 8 times before it ceased.  I repeated this three or four more times before the heart stopped for good.  I can’t describe the feeling of power it gave me to start that heart.  It was amazing.  

  I was so overwhelmed by the experience I talked to the professor.  He assured me that the frog was not alive, but that the cold scalpel had triggered an autonomic response of the nerves to make the heart beat.  I had not performed a miracle.  

  This experience allowed me to forgive the doctor.  I understood how it felt to bring my father back to life.  If the heart kept responding the doctor wouldn’t have been able to do anything more than keep trying.  Forgiving him was extremely helpful as it brought me one step closer to forgiving myself.