My dad just died.
At least he was at home, where he wanted to be. They moved in a hospice bed this morning, and brought him from the hospital. Everyone thought he'd be fine for a night, so the night nurse he was going to have wasn't going to start till tomorrow night.
Of course that's just the first in a chain of "what ifs", and as Aslan told the children in Narnia, there are no what ifs, there is only what was.
But the human mind can't help re-running events, wishing they'd come out another way. This is the way they came out, though, and writing down more "what ifs" won't help a thing.
I was sitting up with him, and mom had gone to bed. He started having trouble breathing, so I got up and asked if he was having trouble -- he said no, and I stood there holding his hand for a while, and when his breathing steadied I sat back down. But only a few minutes later he was having trouble again, and it sounded bad so I went and woke up mom. There was fluid he was kind of choking on, trying to breathe past, so we rolled him on his side to see if he could cough it out -- but he didn't want to be on his side, so we let him roll back.
I told mom to call someone, but she couldn't find the number for the hospice call nurse. All she could find was the home care, but that only got an answering machine. Dad kept reaching out, and I took his hand every time he did. I think he wanted mom, but she was looking for the hospice number, While she was looking, he reached out for the light by the bed, like he was reaching into the light, not trying to touch the lamp. I asked if it was too bright, and he managed to say no. A little while later he took a really deep breath, and it seemed like it was hard for him. I asked "Are you okay?" He answered, "I'm fine" in a really clear voice. That was the last thing he said.
Finally I convinced mom to call 911. While we were waiting, he stopped breathing. I did mouth-to-mouth, and he started again. Mom was holding one hand and I was holding the other.
He stopped breathing again, so I did mouth-to-mouth again. Mom sounded panicked as she asked, "Is the ambulance on its way?" They said it should be there soon, and in fact it pulled up less than a minute later. I did mouth-to-mouth while we were waiting, and he breathed on his own a few times, but stopped again. I was trying a fourth time when the EMTs arrived, and I let them take over. They seemed to be awfully slow, and were asking questions about DNR status, and while mom was trying to answer, dad stopped breathing again. They weren't doing anything but putting leads on him to connect to a monitor, so I gave mouth-to-mouth one more shot. I couldn't get him breathing on his own this time, but then the EMTs had everything hooked up, and they started CPR. I pulled furniture out of their way.
I watched the monitor. Sometimes it showed him breathing, really really shallowly though. The heart line was really weak; sometimes it looked like it was fluttering, sometimes it made some really sharp spikes. When the gal EMT was doing compressions it looked pretty steady. They were going to use the electro thing, but it said, "Shock not recommended" right out loud. A bit later, though, it didn't object, so they tried that.
One of the gal EMTs got the phone from mom and reached the hospice people; she asked if there was a DNR order, but there wasn't. They asked mom again, and she just looked at me, so I told them that that afternoon we'd agreed to one try to resuscitate, but no more. So they kept trying.
Mom was looking at the phone like she was trying to think of who to call. I went to call our pastor, but he's new enough here his number wasn't in the book. So while one of the gal EMTs helped mom get dressed, I sprinted over to the pastor's house and got him up. As I was going out the door, they wanted to know if I wanted to ride with them, and I hollered back, "Just get mom to the hospital with him, and I'll catch up."
Things get blurry then. I remember coming back. They were bringing him down the steps on a gurney, out to the ambulance. I went into the house for something; mom was fiddling to get the door locked, and I told her to just leave it and go; I'd take care of that stuff. So I locked the house up and went over to wait for our pastor, then we drove to the hospital.
They were still trying to resuscitate him when we got there, but just a couple of minutes later a doctor came in and held mom's hands, and told her they'd tried, but they'd had to "call the code" about a minute earlier. I kind of lost it for a while.
We sat with the pastor, I don't know how long, but after a while a nurse came and asked if we wanted to see him. Mom said no, but after a bit I decided yes, so they tidied things up and came to get me after a couple of minutes. Mom changed her mind then, and came in and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then left. I put my hand on his forehead and prayed a little, then scolded him for not waking up one last time so he could tell mom good-bye. I gave him a hug, then held his hand for a little while. Somewhere in there, before the hug, I closed his eyes.
When I got back to the room where mom was sitting with our pastor, I called my sister with the news. I told her a little bit about the end, then since I wasn't talking too clearly, asked her to call the other siblings. After that we just sat for a while, and said a few things about dad, but fell quiet after several minutes.
Then the pastor brought us home. Mom looked distressed, and I felt distressed, and all the remnants of the EMTs efforts didn't help, so I folded blankets and put them away, and picked up all the wrappers and things they'd dropped, until it was just the bed with its dark blue sheet that dad had liked. That made it easier to be in the room. Mom picked up some things, too, things that didn't make sense to me -- I almost told her to just go to bed, but sometimes people just do things to be busy, to feel better, so I didn't. Finally she stopped and said, "That will do till morning". While she was being busy, I turned on the light in her room, and arranged the bed pillows, so when she went in everything was ready. She kept popping back out, though, to do some other little thing. She kept worrying about the lights, and the thermostat, and the home care papers that had fallen on the floor. The second time out she asked if she should call dad's sister; I told her I would, so she did. She picked up somethings and took them to the kitchen, then said she was going to bed. A few minutes later she was back -- she thought it was important, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was about. But I told her I was going to sit up a while, and I'd take care of things, and got her to bed.
Now I'm sitting here drinking a quality beer and remembering. My emotions have pretty much shut down, or I wouldn't be writing this. Writing down his last hour or so has helped me relax -- so has the beer -- so I'll pick up the bedding stuff here -- I was going to spend the night on the couch to be near dad -- and head upstairs.
That room is going to be really lonely. I'm going to need someone to be with besides mom, so in the morning I'm going to go post bail for a buddy who's in jail -- he got transferred from a hundred miles away today to the jail here, which at the moment seems to me to be perfect timing. Maybe with him to hang on to, my emotions will come back and I can cry like I started to before mom needed me to be there and stable.
I left the lamp on that he reached out toward. In a way it's comforting: when he first reached toward it, I had a feeling that this was it, this was the end, and the more I look at that lamp with its light streaming over where his head lay, the more I'm certain he was reaching toward a light I couldn't see, and that he's gone there, into light where he isn't weak or hurting any longer.
His will says no funeral. He'll be buried in Willamette National Cemetery, because he's a veteran; despite the no funeral order, I intend to be there when he's buried.
I'm glad he was my dad. For a lot of my life he seemed distant, preoccupied with things and without time for us kids, but living here with my parents, helping them take care of the house, helping take care of dad as he grew steadily less able to do plumbing and carpentry repairs, I had fun with him. Fixing the fence dividing the front yard from the side was fun, and so were a lot of other things. I learned to laugh with him, and really talk with him sometimes. From time to time I stressed, and had to leave and go camping, just to get away from feeling oppressed by having to help him out of the shower, into his dinner chair, off the toilet, into his pants, but as the end came -- though I had no clue it would be this soon -- I found myself glad to be helping him... we even joked about it together often.
In a way it was a privilege. Neither of my brothers, nor my sister, got to be with him as he faced the end. He knew it was coming better than we did, mom and I -- looking back, I see little ways that he had of facing it. And his last words were clear, spoken to me: "I'm fine".
So I believe: that he is fine now, out of the pain, out of the debility, no longer hardly able to talk after the several mini-strokes this last weak, no longer occasionally gasping for breath, no longer feeling unhappy that he was a burden to us.
Tomorrow is a new day. I have commitments to keep, and mom to be there for. We have decisions to make about the future, too -- we can't keep the house long, with his retirement income ended (and Social Security survivors benefits are a joke). There will be friends to be called on, a lot of sorting of books and other belongings, and the choosing of a new place for mom to live.
I only have one thing to ask of the family now, and that's one last Christmas here, or at least Thanksgiving. One of those would be a fitting farewell to the home where my parents spent thirty years together, thirty years of love and happiness.
'Bye, dad. I'll miss you.
