a change of heart

Here's a 360 degree turn from my punchiness the other day. I'm not working at SJSU this semester, but am still on the English Department mailing list (from which I learn wonderful tidbits; the department sent a memo out, begging for an "old futon, mattress, anything" that one of the visiting scholars could sleep on in the "humble apartment supplied by the University." Nothing like a garrett with no mattress to make visiting scholars feel really welcome).

BUT ANYWAY..among the office dreck was a note from my favorite professor of Blake and Mythology, who has no blog nickname; he's simply Harvey. Harvey had to retire last year; he has a heart condition (I don't know what the nature of it is, exactly) and has been getting sicker and sicker. A small group of students went over his house recently and had lunch with Harvey and his wife Maya; they are so much in love (they married the year I was born), and Harvey is so brilliant and funny that his illness seems an unbelievable tragedy. Harvey's memo was that his heart condition has worsened so much that he is going to have to have a heart transplant. He's in really good spirits about it, apparently, and says the operation will rejuvenate him and he is excited about the possibilites if the operation is successful. I gathered from the memo that this is a last-ditch effort to save his life. The last time I saw him, I gave him a hug and he was so thin, like a little bundle of bones.

I looked up heart transplantation on the Internet--I really don't know that much about it--and came across a lot of stories of really brave folks. There was even something funny--one guy woke up in the cardiac post-op area after his transplant and got really frightened, because he heard lovely harp music! He thought he had, as my dad would say, "done died and gone to heaven," but it turns out some dear old lady came into that area of the hospital regularly to play her harp for the patients. I am not sure harp music, for all its loveliness, is entirely the best thing to be playing in certain areas of the hospital.

Anyway, I have a feeling Harvey will make it and be well, but it was quite a bit of news.