TheBanyanTree: The Death of My Father

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Monique -

I'm so sorry for the loss of your father, Monique.  My thoughts are with
you.

Margaret

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
www.linkedin.com/in/margaretkramer

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be
cured.      
-B.K.S. Iyengar

-----Original Message-----
From: thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com
[mailto:thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com] On Behalf Of Monique Colver
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 10:39 PM
To: Banyan Tree
Subject: TheBanyanTree: The Death of My Father

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.