Immersive
Is he dead? I would wake every two hours throughout the night to deliver his medications with this question foremost on my mind. Sleeping near my father's bed, my legs propped over the armrest, I would listen first, not really needing to look. Getting him to this relatively calm state was a process with several episodes that challenged my fortitude and were ultimately addressed by the hospice nurses that graciously came to the house when summoned at all hours. Every evening, I watched the reality series, Owning Manhattan, with its depiction of the cutthroat, luxury, New York real estate market, viewing it in single episode sips rather than a season-long binge. The fancy Manhattan real estate office, multi-million-dollar properties, and clumsy cast member machinations provided a diversion from the simple intensity and relative isolation of my current state. Breath in, long pause, breath out. Consultants like me tend to live on the outside. However intimate we might get with a client, it's rare to be fully embedded. My value is initially lodged in my informed outsider perspective. I usually hear about any dysfunction second hand. For two months while my father was ailing and, eventually dying, I drifted away from work, trading professional responsibilities for personal ones. The experience was the unexpected last episode in a long, complicated relationship that included its share of trips to New York. Other real estate shows aren't like Owning Manhattan, which is better, classier, although not without its irrational plot twists that, along with seeing the expensive, over-the-top apartments, is really why I watched.
