My father is back in the hospital.  Ten days ago, he made it to the front doors of the apartment building and collapsed.  It happened at about eight in the morning.  He was on his way to the Car Service.  He isn't actually working, anymore.  He can hardly see, but it doesn't stop him from getting up in the morning and going into the Car Service, where he rides shot gun with one of the other drivers.  It must have been difficult for him.  At 12 years old, he started earning money standing in front of Monument Square in Portland, Maine, selling Newspapers.  He's been working ever since.  Even when he retired he didn't stop working.  He sold his cab, sat around the house for 15 days and then went into Car Service.  Most people work to live.  My father lives to work.

 

    "He was on his way to work," a Mr. Riener told me.  "I asked him how much he'd charge to get the wife and I to the airport and he just fell.  Whump!  One minute we're talking and the next, he's flat out on the ground."

 

    Mrs. Reiner ran upstairs and dialed 911.  It took 15 minutes

the ambulance to get to him and by then, he was awake.  He was sitting up in a chair in the lobby and more concerned with getting to work, than why he passed out.  The paramedics talked him into going to the hospital.  My father agreed, on the condition they took him to Kings Highway Hospital.  He didn't want to go to Brookdale Hospital.  He'd seen enough of Brookdale Hospital.

 

    "My wife died in Brookdale Hospital,"  he told them.  "I don't want to die there.  Besides, I'm a patient of Doctor Springer and he's affiliated with Kings Highway Hospital.  So, you can take me there."

 

    The paramedics complied.

 

    Ten days later, I come home.  I go to see him.  He isn't surprised.  My sister had called to forewarn him.
    I'm not sure I should have come home at all.