“Your Aunt had an aneurysm,” my mother said over the phone. Immediately, I thought of my grandmother, an almost violently vibrant woman never far from a cigarette or mug of coffee who had been reduced to a breathing corpse who occasionally fluttered her eyes. A brain aneurysm had taken her life, and consequently a year of ours as we stewed in the false hope that she would wake up and be whole.

Soon, we were all gathered in a New Jersey Waiting room — my only comfort being that if this was the start of another shit show, at least I’d have my wife and two young daughters with me. I’d meet this new death as a man with a full life beside him. That assurance was brief as just then, a new fear entered the room, sat next to me in that too-bright space and whispered in my ear: “this could be the way you die.”

When the doctor finally arrived, the news was good — my aunt not only survived but the worst of it would be a lifetime of occasional headaches, a welcome off-ramp from her own mother’s fate. But how many of those lucky exits were there and would I be afforded one?

I was in my early 30s at the time, still young enough to imagine the long, straight line of destiny laid out in the decades I assumed were mine. But this event had queered the geography. My aunt was only in her sixties, which meant if her destiny was mine, time was much shorter. And time was no longer mine alone. It belonged to my wife and the two small faces that smiled at me from the backseat. And, like the mortgage and bills and other piles of envelopes that become my reluctant adult responsibility, so did my health.

So, a week later I was in a waiting room of my own, barely clothed in a breezy gown thumbing through my phone for the last time before I’d be put in the machine. A friendly nurse came in, assuring me everything would be fine and that she would turn on some nice music to calm my nerves. I was not nervous, I’m not claustrophobic, but I was grateful for the music. As I lay stock still and neck-deep in the MRI machine, I wanted nothing more that to drown out the voice — the one that said I’d emerge from the machine to frowning doctors and a poor diagnosis. The voice that said heredity was unavoidable and all that was left was a date.

Thankfully, I fell asleep and was only roused by the same smiling nurse who said I could get dressed and leave. I’d have only days to wait for the results of my brain scan. I don’t remember those days now, maybe because I’ve had many more like them since. I routinely go in to get prodded and poked when that voice whispers to me about that weird pain in my chest or lump on my scalp. It still taunts me but I’ve grown to find my only choice is to meet its challenge and prove it wrong.  

As men, we often see or mortality in our fathers. But the truth is, we are made of many people and what happens to your aunt, your sister or your grandmother can happen to you. And whether you have sons or daughters, you owe it to them to make sure your life is in order or else you end up being THEIR waiting room wake up call.

James Hill is a husband, a father of two and a freelance writer based in Maryland.

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