Phermoans

Dad...RIP

If only his last words were, “It’s okay, son. I’m okay, you’re a good boy…” I might not be so consumed with those modern TV, “this is real life” moments. Isn’t that how it always ended? With some witty last words? Something to comfort the living, something to wrap up the grieving like a down comforter on those bone chilling, New England winter mornings? It wasn’t like that though when my Dad passed away.
A blistering snowstorm outside blanketed that morning with an early evening cottony and puffy haze. My dad and I were the only two people on the planet that day. We were sharing the same hospital bed that we had just slid into the evening before. I had my dad’s head cradled in my lap from behind and was softly stroking his hair. I whispered urgently how much he was loved and that he was going to a better place. He would soon be with his beloved mother that he so desperately missed his past 50 years. I was brave but my voice cracked relentlessly many times. My breaths came deeply, numbly but I kept whispering. Total lapses of movement, a slight gasp and then another round of shallow breaths punctuated several attempts of my dad’s breathing. My verbal epitaphs took on a despairing urgency. I had to let him know through his drug-induced coma that it was okay to leave us. Then the expected, dreaded and ultimately feared cessation happened. The moment he passed it was as if a motor was dying. The belief pounded down ferociously, tenderly, painfully as the seconds kept their relentless count and his chest wouldn’t move.
“Dad?” No, not yet! I wasn’t done! It’s not fair! He didn’t have a chance to say his famous last words! “Dad?”
I hugged him harder, squeezed his head closer to my quivering lips, “Dad? No Dad, no, no…I’m not really ready for you to go”. I might have been but I couldn’t recognize myself on that path of our world’s most natural cycle. At least not without that claustrophobic darkening awareness closing in. My hands moved from his shoulders to his chest and back, trying to fight off the coolness that was slowly claiming my Dad’s body.
“Dad?” It’s oddly queer the kind of thoughts that try to lease space in your head at a moment like this. I could hear the New England Patriots on the TV in the next room winning their playoff game. “Ah Dad, you’ve waited so long for the Pat’s to win, you couldn’t have waited another couple of hours?” The Norman Rockwell moment of Father and Son sharing a bowl of pretzels and watching the playoffs slowly took form mentally. A roaring fire in the background, squirrels on the windowpane with chestnuts in their jowls, Mom in the kitchen pulling a pan of cornbread muffins out of the oven with that otherworldly smile on her face. Or like in the movies with Mom and Dad laughing, Bro and Sis sharing . a conspiratorial look with half a smile. We’d roar when the ball sailed through the uprights! Go Patriots! Whooohooo! The popcorn bowl accidentally spilling causing more laughter. Hell, even on TV they’d all be sharing the couch in the same room, laughing, hooting, and hollering for their team. TV, TV, TV. The land of TV families. My family was a TV family, somewhere between Fear Factor and ER, Life in the Emergency Room. My dad would be dead as he is now and my mom would be a nuclear bomb, just like she is now. It was polarity, it was gas and water or fire depending on the moment, it was unclear, unfocused and very asphyxiating, We didn’t grow up, we survived.
TV families were the breeze ruffling aspen leaves on a crisp, spring morning in the woods. The crunch of pine needles, the smell of eucalyptus, the deep blue of alpine lakes, the rustling of a startled deer. I adored and believed in such fantasy. I hugged my Dad harder, brought him closer to my head, hoping that those fantasies would flow into him. “I know Son, that was what we all wanted. But don’t worry, you were always a good boy! I always loved you and always will, just from a different place now.” My mental Dad speaking to me.
I’ve agonized over the fates that put me in that room that morning. I was physically exhausted from staying up all night, holding him, massaging his hands, his hair. I was repeating myself to him all night about departing peacefully and gracefully. I don’t know where all that came from. Yes I do, it was my love from that super secret protected place. You know the place that you couldn’t even get there with that drilling truck they used to journey to the center of the earth. Sometimes under extreme stress, you could scratch the surface and I’d say things that were romantically challenged or dramatically wounding. But under normal conditions (what the hell is normal!) it would remain dormant and I would just react to life. React to life, which is what I was doing now. “DAD!! Not now Dad!”
I had gone out into the hallway barefoot looking for a nurse. My hair was ratcheted, my eyes were ringed with artery popping bloodstains, I was scratching my butt and mumbling about my dad passing away, could someone please help me? I went back into his room and threw myself over his chest and wailed. He was really gone and no, no last words. At that moment a low, deep moan escaped his chest. It was the last air being released from his lungs after being jarred by my body. It was definitely my dad’s voice, I could tell from the timbre, the range, the familiar tone of Dad. It wasn’t much in the way of “I love you son” but I wasn’t complaining. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” That was it. My dad truly gave me a gift that unforgettable morning. Many gifts actually. I could translate that moan in as many ways, many last words as my little mind would let me do. To have that knowledge physically of his last warmth passing through my hands, my face, my lips was so powerful. No TV show could ever record such a moment. Nothing has transcended my dad’s love for his family than those final hours we shared together. Time to change the channel or rather, turn the TV off.
RIP...January 27, 2002

posted by Pher @ 8:36 AM