Few things cause me to feel enraged, but this does.
On December 22 at Atlantic City Airport, my 79 year old father who was suffering from terminal stomach cancer, blod clots in his lungs, and internal bleeding, on oxygen, and in a wheelchair was hoisted up out of his wheelchair and forced to stand for several minutes while TSA agents frisked him on his way to a plane that would take him to his final destination, Florida. When my mother looked around and saw this fragile man, who she'd been married to for 57 years, struggling to breathe while being frisked while being held up by two TSA agents, she was panicked, asking them to please spare him this treatment as he was very ill. They told her that they were strong and could hold him up.
When she told me this I believe I felt my normally low blood pressure rise to the boiling point. I now understand why there has been so much outrage over the TSA.
Dad had rallied to get to that plane because most of the family was in Florida, and he knew his time was short. His cancer had taken a bad turn a few weeks earlier and he had started to fall whenever he stood up because his blood pressure would drop dramatically. In spite of his failing health, he was insistent upon getting to where the entire family could gather around him...his beloved St. Augustine. It was a mere 2 hours away by plane, yet a dream because of his deteriorating condition. We looked at medical transport-almost $5000 and half of what it would cost to fly him there on a medical jet. Neither was financially possible...
So after a home visit and ok from his beloved doctor, Dad gathered all his strength and allowed his grandson and my mom to support him in this final rally and get him to the plane for the 2 hour flight to Orlando, where his son and daughter (my brother and sister)would meet him with a car and take him to St. Augustine.
I was on the phone with my siblings as they anxiously waited at the airport for him to be wheeled off the plane. There were many tense moments as they waited. Finally....he was with them and the relief was palpable. This was his last wish-to get to his family. I flew in the next day, my other brother a day later. Dad passed away 5 days later, in the early morning hours of December 27 while my mother lay at his side comforting him. We were all there.
So now I am dealing with my father's death, but even more, I'm often sleepless because of the indignity that was inflicted upon this proud man in one of his last days and one of the the last times he stood up before his death.
I have to ask the powers that be; Was this necessary? Do we really think that a dying man in a wheelchair and on oxygen and his devastated wife could be the perpetrators of terrorism. Couldn't they see that my father's labored breathing and oxygen tank rendered him almost helpless to exist let alone capable of executing a crime. Where is the common sense that prevailed when my parents were young? When I was young? How could such an outrage happen in America?
That's what I wanted to share. I feel better for having put all this anger into words in print. I hope someone eventually reads this and the myriad other stories of indignities forced upon the least likely individuals as they make their way across this country by air. Perhaps someone will even do something about it. Maybe now I can rest and just let myself cry.
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