mama3girls-phnig

What I knew immediately was this:
Mr. Maldonado was very loved.

Think like a king.

Not a weak king. A real king. The kind everyone watches, worries over, fusses at, translates for, corrects, protects, feeds, hydrates, argues with, and still somehow obeys.
And what I also knew—within about thirty minutes—was this:
Mr. Maldonado’s daughters were making every registered nurse on that floor’s job significantly easier.
And, funnier, from where I stood, this was better than a paid comedy show. However, since it was an emergency room and he was in a private bed, I knew that laughter needed to be sincerely dialed back.
That matters too.
There are only supposed to be two family members in an emergency room private bedroom. Because I am not an actual child, I felt like we should keep the party to a minimum so I didn’t get kicked out.
Looking at Mr. Maldonado, he needed at least one professionally paid registered nurse and four women who treated him like a king.
Think that kind of power.
He was delivered lovingly by ambulance.
Mr. Maldonado had lower right waist pain—possible appendix, possible kidney, possibly something else entirely.
I took one look at him and knew that he was a lot like my dad.
And like my dad, he was probably not drinking enough water.
I decided to help the nurses and ask them to start fluids in the IV currently protruding from his arm.
What you should also know is that Mr. Maldonado did not appreciate the IV currently protruding from his arm.
And he really didn’t appreciate the pulse ox on his right pointer finger.
Sandy, his oldest daughter and medical consenter, was worried enough to say, “Hospital. Now,” to his wife, Rosie.
Rosie is Judy and Sandy’s stepmom.
Judy and Sandy love their stepmom.
You may be wondering if Sandy is a nurse.
Sandy is not a nurse.
But she plays one very well.
Mr. Maldonado is also very hard of hearing.

That matters.
Because by the time we arrived at the hospital, it became clear we weren’t only dealing with pain.
We were dealing with confusion.
And a king who believed his daughters had brought him there to take him out to dinner.
Because of how the Houston visit shook out, I was with Judy when we arrived. Sandy came later—she had a longer drive—but by then she had already spent close to an hour behind the scenes talking with EMS and the ambulance crew.
Sandy knew more than Judy and I did.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Thirty minutes later, we had all learned more.
Possibly even more than Sandy.
At one point, Mr. Maldonado said something in Spanish.
Sandy looked at me and asked, “What did he say?”
Then she turned toward her dad and repeated the question in that effortless blend of Spanish and English bilingual families do so well.
I’m learning Spanish.
Very slowly.
So I said, “I’m not 100% sure… but I think your dad probably needs more water. And maybe he’s hungry.”
Now, I’m fairly certain that was not what he literally said.
But I was pretty sure it was what Sandy actually needed to know.
That may sound strange, but sometimes translation isn’t word-for-word.
Sometimes translation is concept-for-concept.
I call it bridging.
Sometimes people ask one question when they really need the answer to another.
Usually I hide behind my weak Spanish when I miss something.
For probably the first time, I was grateful for that excuse.
Because this situation was confusing for me too.
And sometimes confusion gives you permission to bridge.
Sandy laughed.
Not the ha-ha-that’s-funny laugh.
More like the laugh that says, Oh… I forgot to tell you something important.
She looked past me toward her stepmother, Rosie.
I was confused.
Sandy was not.
“He does need more water,” she said. “She”—eye motion toward Rosie—“needs to put lemon and salt in his water and make lemonade. Then he’ll drink it.”
Rosie explained that she asks him multiple times a day to drink water.
Multiple times a day, he refuses.
He will drink coffee.
He will drink Dr Pepper.
He will not drink water.
At the sound of the word water, Mr. Maldonado began removing the medical equipment his nurse had lovingly arranged about five minutes earlier.
He was thirsty.
He was hungry.
And from where I stood, he was also confused.
At one point, I decided I might be able to help.
Or at the very least, entertain myself.
I have broken Spanish and misplaced confidence—an occasionally dangerous combination.
So I walked over to Mr. Maldonado, took his hand, and gently pressed the offending finger with the annoying medical accoutrement against my hand and then to my heart.
In Spanish, I asked him to sing to me.
Now, this may sound strange unless you know something important about Mr. Maldonado.
Mr. Carlos Maldonado is a locally famous Tejano singer.
Back in the day, he went places.
He went lots of places.
To be fair, today he is still a locally famous Tejano singer, but if you look up Carlos Maldonado, you’re more than likely looking at Carlos Maldonado Junior, and that’s a story for a different day.
Senior still knows he has it going on.
He also knows exactly how to become very quiet and very still when a beautiful woman is holding his hand against her heart.
Just like that, the confusion paused.
He looked at me carefully.
Then he asked:
“Are you one of my children?”
I considered this because it was a fair question.
And he was confused.
In fact, Judy was mouthing this exact sentiment to me.
So, because he was confused and I was helping my best friends—the sisters—keep their father in a hospital bed, I decided to answer the question with a question.
So naturally I said,
“Good question. What’s my mother’s name?”
From across the room, without missing a beat, Judy said:
“This is not the time, Jennifer.”

At this point, Sandy piped in.

And I swear to you, her timing was impeccable.

“Well, we’ve tried to get him to take the test, but he won’t do it.”

I blinked.

She continued.

“There’s some consent form somebody has to sign, and I know he won’t do it.”

Now, I need to pause here and say something about rule followers.

I love a good rule.

I really do.

Rules exist for reasons.

Forms matter.

Consent matters.

Policies matter.

Procedure matters.

But sometimes—only sometimes—following every rule in perfect order does not actually get us what we need.

Sometimes life hands you a narrow window, a confused Tejano singer in a hospital bed, and exactly twelve seconds to ask a question no consent form has managed to answer.

In moments like that, I become… flexible.

I have found there are generally two kinds of people in the world.

People who ask permission.

And people who ask forgiveness.

I would like the record to reflect that I deeply respect the first group.

I am just not always a card-carrying member.

I told Sandy, “Well… sometimes following the rules doesn’t always get us what we need.”

I said this while still holding her father’s hand to my heart.

Again, I would like the record to reflect:

It felt very much like the time.

I mean, I was staring at their father in a hospital bed, so I decided to behave myself and silence my mouth.

Sandy whipped her head toward her father like a marching band director who just spotted a trumpet out of formation.
I said, “Your dad has been trying to do this for thirty minutes. I think he wants to go eat.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. “Let me explain.”
She turned to him.
“No, Dad. You can’t go out to eat because you don’t drink water. No more Dr Pepper for you. You’re staying here and eating shitty hospital food.”
Beat.
“Eehole.”
At that exact moment, Judy walked back into the room.
Judy had come up to me earlier and said that Sandy struggles to have compassion for her father and that she often gets called certain names that I will not use in this post.
Judy doesn’t always disagree with this about her sister.
I don’t believe that means her sister doesn’t care.
All of those things can be true.
Her dad resumed removing medical things.
Judy moved in.
“Dad, are you hungry? You can’t take that off.”
He reminded her—for maybe the fifth time—that they had brought him there and he still did not understand why.
Then he successfully removed one of the medical attachments.
Judy didn’t miss a beat.
“No, sir. Leave it on. Now I have to go get another Band-Aid. Don’t touch it. Don’t touch that either. Touch nothing, Dad.”
I noticed the nurses trying very hard not to laugh.
They were failing.
Thankfully, failure looked a lot like relief.
At this point, I’ll admit something.
It had become a little difficult to watch Mr. Maldonado be so… misunderstood.
At least, that’s what I thought was happening.
I was tired.
Emotionally full.
Slightly overstimulated by bilingual chaos, medical tubing, and repeated discussions about Dr Pepper.
So I took the car keys, walked out to Judy’s brand-new BMW, reclined the seat, and decided to think things over.
Apparently, my body had other plans.
Two hours later, around 1 a.m., I woke up from what can only be described as an involuntary hospital parking lot sabbatical.
Judy climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Girl,” she said, “you would not believe it.”
I blinked.
“What happened?”
She laughed.
“My dad kept thinking we were taking him out to dinner.”
I stared at her.
She continued.
“We had to keep telling him, ‘Dad, you are not going out to eat dinner. You’re going to bed. And when you wake up, you are leaving this place.’”
And there it was.
My great compassion for the misunderstood old man collided headfirst with reality.
He wasn’t misunderstood.
Not by his daughters.
They understood him perfectly.
That’s the thing about daughters.
Sometimes what sounds harsh to outsiders is actually fluency.
I heard conflict.
They heard confusion.
I heard tone.
They heard meaning.
I thought I was bridging concepts.
Turns out, they weren’t learning to bridge concepts.

They were fluent in fathers.