Thursday ran its course with nothing noteworthy happening – or so I thought until the day was almost done. On my way home from work, I stopped in at my parents’ to check on my Dad. He’s 83 and, much as I hate confronting the fact, he’s been getting frailer and frailer over the last year. It’s as if he’s gradually – almost imperceptibly – ticking to a halt like an old clock. When I arrived Thursday afternoon, though, he seemed better than he has in a while and my heart gave a little leap of relief. I hadn’t realized how weighed down it’s been.
The minister arrived a few minutes after I did, fulsome and hearty as befits a visit to elderly parishioners, I guess. The thought crossed my mind that my Dad might have psyched himself up for the reverend’s arrival, but I hoped otherwise. I helped my Mom set out the china teacups and the oatmeal muffins, then headed home for the early bedtime my work schedule dictates.
At 5:30, my baby brother, Tickles, called from New York. He’s an itinerant jazz musician tripping the Light Fantastic for a week of gigs. Thursday’s rehearsal was held only three blocks from the Hudson River site of the Air Bus crash and he witnessed some of the rescue uproar as well as the stunned relief at the survival of all onboard. “It’s a good thing George W. Bush is on his way out,” I remarked. “Otherwise we Canadians would be accused of running terrorist camps for our geese.”
Tickles went on to describe the incredible ebullience of the average American in the lead-up to Obama’s inauguration. There are banners and posters everywhere, he says, people decked out in Obama T-shirts and caps and generally exuding a sense of excitement and great joy. And hope. Tickles lived in New York for two years in the early 90s and notes that this explosion of hope makes it feel like a different city.
Then Tickles mentioned that he’d just called my parents and was worried about my Dad, who’d sounded weak, completely exhausted and almost tearful. Mom and Dad recently celebrated their wedding anniversary and Dad had been very down because, for the first time in 55 years, he couldn’t go out and buy flowers for my Mom. Now he sounded even lower.
We discussed the frustration of being unable to do anything. Seven years ago, when Dad broke his hip, there were countless ways to help – visiting the hospital, providing moral support for Mom, getting the house ready for Dad’s return and rehabilitation after the hip replacement. Among a myriad of serious ailments, Dad presently suffers from severe anaemia and water retention. None of the prescribed drugs are having any effect. He goes from bed to table to his chair in the living room – the chair Piglet built a wooden lift for during the hip recovery – where he sits and starts to read but quickly falls asleep, mouth slack, head lolling. He spends the majority of his daylight hours sleeping in that chair. He rarely even watches TV any more as taking the short walk downstairs is too much for him. Walking at all, in fact, is difficult; he has the shuffling, tentative gait of a very old man. A phrase from a 30s news report, “The King’s life is drawing peacefully to a close,” keeps playing in my head.
It’s a tremendous burden on Mom, of course, and she’s reacting as she always does in trying times. Meals are one of the few things Dad still enjoys so she’s summoning the energy to prepare all his favourites and has started baking again. I briefly considered whipping up some edibles myself and taking them over, but realized that cooking and baking give Mom something to do – the only thing she can do – and help hold back the sadness and worry.
I think, then, that my “wake up call” was intended to turn my attention to my Mom and Dad. In addition to enervating health issues, my return to Canada has also proved emotionally and spiritually painful. I’ve been very self-absorbed, feeling almost shell-shocked at times and quite directionless – lacking purpose – at others.
I need to focus on the main reason I came back – my family. There may be nothing I can do to alleviate my Dad’s physical situation, but I can offer my presence. I can visit more often and try to provide a diversion, to deflect his thoughts, no matter how briefly, from his slow decline. I can face up to the fact that the sands in my Dad’s hour glass are trickling away just as little Finn’s are pouring in. I can take part in the process by simply placing myself beside my parents and moving through it with them.
“They also serve who only stand and wait.”
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Your dad has had a long life and has a loving family. Do you think he reached many of his own goals in life?
ReplyDeleteI often wonder if we knew when we were dying, would we have things unsaid to our loved ones before we died and would we say them. Would we want to talk about mistakes we made, hopes we held and to generally ponder aloud what our life has meant.
All the wonderful tributes said of a person at their funeral, would they not be better if they were said while the person was still alive . . .
When death is close, in old age, are we afraid or ready? Death is a part of life, but we don't want to confront it's nearing or talk about it - it's taboo. Should it be?
I was at my mother's bedside when she died (cancer) she was in her 50's as I am now.(I had rushed to get a flight to be with her after my sisters rang me.) Not long after sitting next to her she woke, I had my daughter with me, only a toddler, she hugged my daughter clearly happy to see her. My mother asked me "Are you happy?" I replied that so long as my children were happy and well so was I. It occurred to me she wanted to know that her daughter(me) was happy too. For just those couple of minutes after my arriving she was awake and alert. I remember her drifting in and out of consciousness after that. She suddenly and urgently woke and said "Nana wants to know your address" ( she had long since died, it was her mother-inlaw, not her mother). I was so unprepared, so much so that I couldn't remember my address. I was stumbling to remember it saying the surburb, state but I couldn't remember the street name, i was so taken aback by the urgency.
In those moments when she seemed to regain consciousness she was always focused towards a particular corner of the room. I don't know what I thought back then, an angel? a light beam? My mother had fought cancer, the whole chemo, radiation thing, for a couple of years. I spent most of the time on the bed next to her stroking her forehead. I told her how soft her skin felt, with urgency she gasped at me "Ponds". It was a cream she had used for decades, there's a photo of me as a toddler with my fingers in the jar and the cream smeared all over my face and a mirror. I probably should have told her that I would use it, perhaps she was advising me to in those last moments. In time every breath was a struggle, still stroking her face, I whispered "Don't be afraid mum, don't fight it any more." (I was thinking of that light beam, her resisting it - imagined or not.) She didn't regain consciousness after that and I don't know how much longer it was when she died, I lost all sense of time while with her.
I didn't say 'I love you mum'. I didn't say 'I'm sorry' I moved away from you and that we rarely spoke to each other after a 'falling out'.
A very long time later, I was at the kitchen sink. There was a particular scent that my nanna had, and I could smell it - right then at the sink. It was so vivid I looked around for her.
I don't know why I wrote this. I remember my mother's passing with much sadness because of all the regrets I had, and probably she had too.
It wasn't a 'good ending' but it was shared. We didn't say 'I love you' to each other, but I know now that our love was present and conveyed in those hours, as mother and daughter, and as two mothers. My father died more recently, and I felt no sense of loss, only the loss of what should have been.
My mother left myself, my younger sister, and my 2yr old brother when I was still in high school. What I realise now was she didn't so much leave us but my father, and with good reason. My two older sisters had already left home and were working. It was a messy divorce. I wasn't close to my father at all. I missed my mother terribly and my sister and I were thrown into being 'mothers' to our little brother with little help from my father. I remember her (in my early childhood years) often smiling, humming, singing, arranging flowers, she later became a florist. I should mention my mother was raised in foster care.
Perhaps, I hope, you may find some comfort in comparison. Your father, at his age, has always been, and still is surrounded by a loving wife and daughter and will be right to the end. Don't be afraid to let him go, he'll always be present in your thoughts.