TheBanyanTree: My Father's Hands

[Monique Young]

My father’s hands are rough, the nail beds dirty with caked blood, the nails
themselves ragged. He had been in intensive care for weeks after having his
bladder removed, often not knowing who we were, where he was, or what was
going on around him. He did not do well after his surgery, and suffered from
post-surgery dementia. We, his children, spent hours at the hospital, hoping
for a lucid moment. He slowly progressed, becoming more lucid as time went
by, but still prone to visual flights of fancy that we could not decipher.
	One day, while my three siblings went to their jobs, I went to intensive
care alone, and when I walked into the unit it was empty. His bed was empty.
All the beds were empty. The nurse’s station was empty. I had felt a
momentary panic at finding his bed vacant; I could imagine the feelings of
those who find empty beds unexpectedly, but since the entire unit was empty
I didn’t panic.
	I found him in the new intensive care unit, and he was lucid enough to tell
me how he’d been able to sit in a chair, but had slid down on the plastic
and two nurses had to rescue him. My father is a large man, and this could
not have been easy, but he told it as an amusing story. Now and then he made
comments that had no basis in reality.
	He told me to get his clothes and his truck, and then we would get on the
train and go home. He told me people were spying on him, and watching him,
and that there was a sniper on the roof shooting at people in the courtyard
below. He repeated himself over and over again, forgetting what he had just
said, and I responded by answering noncommittally, or tried to. He was so
insistent, so persistent, and every refusal to get him on the train was met
with a “why can’t we?” My explanations were met with a blank look, and then
he’d tell me to do it again.
	Another week passed, and he moved out of intensive care into the general
population, less confused and disoriented, but still so helpless. On my last
day in town, before I had to fly back to Seattle, I went to the hospital
with a nail file, nail clippers, lotion.
	I had my father sit in a chair, and I sat in another chair, facing him. I
took his hands into my lap. I cleaned the nail beds carefully, removing the
dried blood or whatever it was, dark green and ugly, and let him talk. Head
bent to my task, I let him say what he wanted to say, and when he mentioned
snipers on the roof, he could see them out the window, I said that was too
bad, but I was sure we were safe.
	I filed the nails carefully, making the ragged edges smooth and the length
reasonable once again. My father had always worked with his hands as a
cabinetmaker, and his hands are rough and strong. Part of a finger is
missing from an accident with a table saw a few years ago.
	We haven’t always understood each other, I think, but in his hands I could
see the strength that had always defined him, and his commitment to caring
for his family. After filing his nails, only nine of them, I rubbed lotion
into his hands very carefully. He talked, and it didn’t matter what it was
about. When I was done, he said he was pleased, but I think he was pleased
that I’d done it, and didn’t care how they looked. It wasn’t the important
part.
	I haven’t been able to return to see him since then, but he’s much better
now, living on his own again after months of living with my sister, back to
leading his own life, slower, perhaps, but still there. I don’t know how his
nails are, but next time I’m down there I’ll give him a manicure.

Batman