The Last Psychiatrist tells a tale of Frosty the Snowman, Quantum Mechanics, and Death:
It was 1979 and the boy was 7 and playing a Mattel electronic soccer, and Karen was 3 and resting her head on her mother’s thigh, but the other part of it was that they were in the hospital and her mother was dying.
The accident put the mother into a coma immediately, but left her that way for another ten hours, nine of which were dreadful waiting. Waiting for something to happen, waiting for it to be too late to stay any longer, waiting for a doctor to come and tell them what the test that they had waited for was going to show.
The father was there, just coming up to sober. He had given the kids the soccer game to distract them so he could process his grief.
There was a nurse there as well, she tried to offer the girls some juice, but Karen didn’t want any juice. The boy scored a goal so no one offered him anything.
The mother let out a gasp, then there was some sort of rushing and organized chaos as the medical staff moved parts of her body around and family asked frenzied questions, within a few seconds more doctors were there, more nurses, and both kids were pushed to a corner where they both stared at futility.
Eventually it was over. It had actually been over well before that. But.
There is a moment, it comes immediately after the doctors stop working and immediately before you understand that the person is forever dead, where time pauses. Everything stops. That stillness is inviolable, it is at that moment when you witness quantum physics choosing between potentialities, you are watching it decide that this not that will be, this is what will be what has happened.
It was in that sacred moment that Karen chose to sing. “Frost-y the snowman! Was a very happy soul–”
She never actually got to “soul,” because by “Frost-” the back of her father’s hand slapped her in the face with such impulse that she fell over.
It was a reflexive slap, the song was such an affront to the family and to quantum mechanics that his hand got to her face even before his eyes did. Everyone winced. No one said anything. The staff looked away, down, up, at machines and papers. The original nurse put a smile on and lead the kids by the hand outside. Maybe there was some ice cream there, let’s leave the grown ups to talk.
“But I want to sing Frosty!” said Karen. ” Just one time?!”
…And then the next thirty years happened, and you will be poorer if you don’t read about them.