Vignette: A Term of Endearment

(Advise to the Reader: The Japanese included is phonetic. I was unable to verify the accuracy of the phrase. "Dezi" is a pseudonym and a composite of several individuals)


"Shinjimae."
I didn’t really know what to think when Dezi started to tell me to "drop dead."
A week or so later, he was telling me to:
"Drop dead."
"Drop dead. Right now."

"Shinjimae imas!!"

Dezi is 80 years old.
He spent 30 months in Japan during WWII, living in Tokyo, chasing girls. His favorite was Consuelo, a young Japanese woman, whose father had lived in Mexico. Dezi is recovering from an illness. He has pulmonary disease. He stumps along with an unsteady gait, feet apart for balance, carrying an oxygen tank in one hand. He has a wide, blue-eyed gaze, as if he’s not quite sure how he got here.

Dezi worries me.
He is round, but he used to be rounder. Dezi is solidly built—but he fatigues easily. His heart has had to work hard for a long time. At night, he has trouble breathing, and he doesn’t get enough oxygen. He is supposed to wear a breathing machine, but he says it "blows too hard." Even after the machine was adjusted, he says he just can’t do it. This means that every night, his heart—the muscle that powers his body—doesn’t get enough oxygen.

Dezi retains CO2.
Our normal breathing patterns allow us to take in oxygen, and blow out excess CO2. Dezi’s breathing patterns are not normal. The extra CO2 makes him groggy and, sometimes, he appears slightly bewildered. Some days he tells me that he doesn’t feel too good, but usually, he blusters through, speaking in an outburst of short emphatic sentences. As we get to know each other, he speaks more and more Japanese. He takes pride as the language returns, speaks rings around my limited vocabulary. "Hai," I agree, and bow my head. Recently, I notice, he speaks more Japanese then English. "Don’t you know that?" He says to me, happy to have beat me again, at his very own game.

"Shinjimae" is his favorite word. He used to tell me to drop dead every time we spent time together. Now, he actively seeks me out, even on those days when he is with someone else. "Shinjimae" he calls over the clamor of people and voices, his wide eyes gaze straining to see me, speaking around the people I am speaking to.

What does it mean when someone tells you to drop dead every time they see you? I used to be taken aback by his sudden, emphatic delivery, caught by surprise by the strength of his voice and the repeated content of his favorite phrase. Once was a joke. Multiple times made me wonder. Now, as Dezi’s vocabulary increases, and he walks with a stronger step, I point and smile, and reply "Ichiban." I don’t know how often, or how much longer, he will get to hear it.