TheBanyanTree: The Death of My Father

[Pam Lawley]

Oh Monique... I'm sad that even with a rushed trip that you weren't able to
make it on time... it just wasn't to be (as trite as that sounds).

But I so very much wish that in your lifetime, before you go ...
wherever... that you learn to accept that your dad DID produce some awesome
human beings and you *ARE* one of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And it's okay to
admit it.

Love and hugs always...

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 11:39 PM, Monique Colver
<monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> Wednesday night while I sat at the airport, waiting for my sister to pick
> me up and take me to the hospital where my father lay dying, my father’s
> heart stopped for the very last time.
>
> My timing is often off, but this is a new level of inept, even for me.
>
> My father and I had our differences, though I think he was unaware of them.
> Okay, so I had my issues. The last time we talked on the phone he’d called
> me, which was unusual because he usually waited for me to call so he could
> complain about how long it’d been since he’d heard from me. But he needed
> to talk, and I heard from him a deeper level of sadness than I’d heard
> before. He was tired, he was sick, he had outlived his siblings, and he
> was, as far as I could tell, just waiting.
>
> He’d been waiting for years. He didn’t expect to live to the age of 83, so
> when he did, he didn’t know what to do with himself. Around thirty years
> ago I was told I’d better get home for Christmas that year, because he
> wasn’t expected to live much longer. His heart was going. He’d had a
> stroke, a heart attack, lost a kidney, and he was, according to his
> doctors, a walking time bomb.
>
> So I traveled from Europe to be there for Christmas, and can you believe
> it? He kept on living. I didn’t mind so much. It was a relief to have him
> still around.
>
> We expect our parents to just keep going, to always be there because they
> always have been, and then suddenly they’re not, and it’s as if they’ve
> abandoned us. This is because they have abandoned us. The nerve of them.
>
> During our last phone conversation I let him talk, as I always did, because
> he did love to talk. Mostly about himself of course – his world had become
> so small that all he really knew about was himself, and so he talked and he
> talked and he talked, and I’d interject the appropriate comments when
> needed. He was insistent on staying in his own apartment, though it wasn’t
> feasible. He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t take care of himself, but he didn’t
> want to go in a facility, and he didn’t want to pay anyone to take care of
> him. I told him we just wanted what was best for him, because we only
> wanted what was best for him. My sister was at his beck and call for years,
> and he counted on her to keep him in his own place for . . . ever.
>
> Last week he went into the hospital. He had an infection, he wasn’t well,
> and they talked of sending him home in a few days, but not home, to a rehab
> facility, perhaps assisted living after that, but he kept getting worse
> instead of better, and suddenly decisions had to be made. He never wanted
> to talk about his wishes, just that he was going to die in his own
> apartment, thank you very much, though he never shared with us how he saw
> that happening. Perhaps he would go to sleep one night and not wake up.
> Perhaps he kept finding himself alive each morning and wondered “what the .
> . . ?”
>
> He thought about what would happen afterwards, and he prepaid for his
> cremation. When his wife died, suddenly and unexpectedly of a massive heart
> attack (she who thought she was going to outlive him and had planned her
> life for after dad), he had no money, and we, his four kids, paid for what
> needed to be paid for. We were glad to do it, and one of us was her child
> too. He didn’t want that to happen again, and so he made sure it wouldn’t.
> But he didn’t plan for up to that point because how could he? How can you
> plan for something when it can happen so many different ways?
>
> Maybe he would die quietly one night, his once frail heart giving up, the
> ticking time bomb finally going off. Perhaps he would die in a car
> accident. Maybe he’d be stricken with an illness and go slowly. Who knew?
>
> Years ago he had cancer. This was long after his heart attack and his
> stroke and the loss of his kidney. Or was it two heart attacks? Two strokes
> or one? No matter. After his wife died he lived alone, and then, one day,
> he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He went into the hospital, they
> removed his bladder, and he had a long and difficult recovery. But he
> recovered, cancer free, and after recovery he was moved into an apartment
> close to my sister.
>
> I was there when we packed up his old apartment, up at Big Bear where he’d
> lived for years. His move to this apartment had left with fewer
> possessions, and this next move would leave him fewer still. He didn’t
> much.
>
> But it seemed like no matter what happened to try to kill him, he’d just
> slough it off and keep going. And then he has the nerve to not even wait an
> extra hour for me to get from the airport to the hospital. Can you believe
> that? I got here as fast as I could. I made plane reservations, packed, got
> to the airport, made it through security in record time, even trying out
> the new scanner thingy, made it to my gate when they were doing last call,
> and got on the plane. Gosh darn it, I was going to be there to be with him!
>
> I’m good with dying people. I’m good at sitting with them and holding a
> hand, or listening to them if they can or want to talk, and I’m good at
> being a calming influence. I can sit for hours next to their bed, just in
> case they need me. I can tell them what they need to hear, and I can
> reassure them. I can make sure they’re not alone. (It’s the living I have a
> problem with. The dying are easy.) He had no appreciation for any of my
> other talents, but this was one that I could use, and then he dies before I
> can swing into action.
>
> Possibly the only thing I could have ever given him, other than the annual
> slippers he liked for Christmas, and he leaves before I can be useful. I
> could have been a better daughter, but I wasn’t, and there’s no going back.
> But that’s okay. We only do what we can when we’re doing it, and there
> aren’t any do-overs. If there were, so many of us would be doing over we’d
> never get anywhere at all. Besides, it took me a long time to accept myself
> the way I am, and damned if I’ll feel guilty now.
>
> He was my dad, and I’ll always remember how hard he tried to take care of
> us when he was on his own, between wives, a single dad who kept us fed and
> clothed and secure, and how he gave me some fabulous siblings who I love
> very much. He produced some awesome human beings (not me, but the others),
> so he deserves a lot of credit for that. He was stubborn, often difficult,
> self-centered, and not very imaginative. But so what? I wanted so much to
> help him – I didn’t want him to suffer, or be in pain, or be sad and alone.
> And at the end, he had my sister, as he had for years, and she and my
> brothers, were there for him, and with him. And three out of four ain’t
> bad, is it? But he knew I was coming, they told him so, and so I expect he
> knew we all wanted the best for him, whatever form it took. I like to think
> he was happy at the end. Let’s go with that theory, since there’s no way to
> know for sure.
>