Part 5 (Friday & Saturday): The 11th Hour

The day my father died was, outside of the gripping rattle of labored breathing, a wonderful day. It was a Saturday. I had tried my best to communicate his steady decline day-by-day, with breathless updates into the phone, to my brother Daniel who was all the way in Texas.

On Wednesday I thought he might have a week. By Thursday I hoped he just had days. He told me he just wanted to “die so bad.” There was a point where mom thought the morphine was messing him up too much. When David came, he was “irritated” with the medical instructions which, by then, had seemed based on symptoms so far in the past. When David is irritated, it is because he is patient, centered and basically incapable of the type of red-headed rage that plagues and emboldens me to do dumb, daring, and stupid things. I, for example, will want to break a window if I hear the sound of a harmonica. David can see his father dying with the wrong amount of morphine being administered (or not administered) and his response is to raise his eyebrows and announce that he is “irritated.”

By the way, someone is *currently* playing “O! Suzannah” downstairs on a harmonica. Either Nancy or my grandma. I don’t understand why the only harmonica songs anyone ever plays are public domain songs from 1864. No one wants to hear “I’ve Been Workin’ (on the Railroad)” or “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain (When She Cums).” Play some Sufan Stephens or get out of here with that bullshit redneckery. Sherman should have gathered up all the harmonicas and thrown them into the fiery hells of downtown Atlanta when he burned it to the ground.

Friday night, Daniel packed up his wife and baby and drove all night straight to Kentucky to hold my dad’s hand.

We were all here. Mike took a red eye in. The day was bright, emotionally beautiful, and mercifully, a harmonica-free-zone. Daniel, Kristen, David, my parents and I were all together for the first time in years. Our spouses were here to support us and to be amazing. We sat by my dad’s bed. They cried and talked to him one at a time. I checked on him gently in a non-frenzied way because other people were watching his breathing and listening to his moans.

My mother and Daniel’s wife Katty sang Trem Bala to him in Portuguese. The lyrics, awkwardly translated, are this:

“Hold your child in your arms
Smile and hug your parents while they are here
Because life is a bullet train, buddy
And we are just passengers about to leave…”

I didn’t aggressively cry because I didn’t understand them so well.

I cooked mussels for the family, drank wine, hugged my brothers and sister and my husband. Baby Olivia ran around with her cute voice repeating me like a baby parrot. We held each other and we held our mother. At the end of the day, everyone went to Kristen’s and David and Hannah drove back to Lexington. David had his hospital rotation the next day.

And then the night fell.

I had my list: check stomach bag fluid, catheter position, lotion, put the little sponge in his mouth if he will let me, chap stick, wash cloth on his face, lotion in his hair, check his feet for swelling, move his bed up and down to change his position, roll him a tiny bit one way or another until he furrowed his brow. I took his pulse on someone’s Apple watch or with a timer and by counting like David taught me. If his pulse was elevated, and sometimes it was extremely elevated, I knew he was in pain.

As he declined, he and I both understood my routine. He would say “thank you,” “yeah,” “I guess so,” (if it was something he didn’t want to do but had to), “I want ice,” “I love you too.” “Uh-uh” meant “no.” His phrases became mechanical as he declined further and further. By Saturday, they were just approximations of the phrases. They were moans, but after 4 straight days and nights I understood this language.

Part of the problem with dying is that it is embarrassing to the person doing it. His catheter pain was unbearable. He had to have it because getting up to go to the bathroom turned him a wheezing breathless mess. I thought he might have a heart attack.

“Daddy, I’ve seen Kristen have a baby. You don’t need to worry.”

“Okay.” He said. He didn’t want to be in a diaper and he knew it and I knew it. He also felt like he couldn’t pee, which we agreed is a nightmare feeling.

“Just pretend it was me in that bed. Would you want me to be embarrassed?” I asked him. He wouldn’t.

I put a sheet over him so he was cooler.

“Imagine doing all of this before modern medicine, daddy.” We agreed that it would be unbearable. We agreed that this situation of dying was no problem if we keep perspective. “This is easy for me, daddy. You’re such an easy patient. I can’t think of an easier patient. And on top of that, you still look so handsome.”

I have followed death in the best possible circumstances: my father and his children at home in their big, beautiful Kentucky house. Hospice nurses sanitizing the process and managing the fucking unbelievable amount of liquid there to deal with coming out of him. Bags for bile, bags for urine, gauze for everything. Tape, plastic bottles to empty bags, portable tables, walkers, portable toilets, gloves, alcohol pads, sponges for his mouth. Piles of supplies cluttering the room. While he could still talk, he was groggy and insistent that things be a certain way.

I set up the DVR to record Another 48 Hours but that I put it on the *lowest* priority (which took me 10 minutes to figure out and I eventually just pretended I had done). He never watched it. I knew he was never going to watch it but I wanted him to know that Another 48 Hours was definitely available should the desire arise.

He insisted that his favorite shorts, the ones with the belt loops and the Chap-stick in the pocket, stay on the floor in case he had guests. He was, at this point, effectively in a diaper connected to tubes. I just told them they were “right here,” but I had washed them and put them on the dresser two days prior.

He wanted for the “non-essential” items be in top drawer (including other chap-sticks and alcohol pads). He wanted fresh water with ice in it and didn’t like his water room-temperature. His phone should be plugged in and his iPad should be near by. He needed control of the things he couldn’t actually control. My father was the least-fussy person I have ever known. I only really ever remember him telling me as a child that I wasn’t allowed to horse around with his desk. For example, I couldn’t take all of his index cards to color on and lose his scissors. He wanted to know that his stapler was available if and when he needed it.

We did our best to respect his desk when we were little, although in retrospect he did get annoyed about it a lot, so maybe on the sliding-scale of how much respect had for his office supplies, it was probably around a 6.

I would definitely rate myself a 10 for how much respect I gave his preferences now. He felt his current situation to be very organized. “No problem,” I would say when he wanted me to move his belt to a different dresser. Then I would run downstairs to freshen his water and get him new ice chips.

Like I was saying, we were in the best possible circumstances and I tried to remind both of us of that as often as possible. “Wow, this makes it easy, huh?” “Daddy, it’s no big deal, we can just wash that towel.” “Oh my god, can you imagine doing this without any pain medicine?” “I am glad you were a Marine. You’re just so tough. Imagine doing this in a third-world country or in the 1700s.”

“You’re like Florence Nightingale,” he said. “I wish I could just hurry up and die.”

“Well I would put you into a sleeper hold but I would probably go to jail for murder. I would prefer to go through my entire life without murdering anyone.”

“Ha ha ha,” he said, and I thought of the time he killed a baby bird in his hands because he thought it was in suffering. It wasn’t in a “House of Cards” way, more like a “Old Yeller” situation. He looked sad about it so I didn’t judge him. I just felt sorry for him to have to crush a baby bird.

Once the night fell and the heat of the day broke, his hospice nurse came over. Her name was Nina. She was a 49 year old African American woman from Atlanta and she was breathtaking. She only admitted her age because I assumed she was about my age, which is 37, but she kept talking about her grandchildren.

Nina was, no joke, one of the funniest human beings I have ever interacted with. She had my mother who was, between fits of crying, laughing at tales of how difficult Nina’s adult children were. She was vivacious and bright. She had a real authority about her. She told us around 10 pm that my father was in the phase of “active dying.” This could go on for a very long time.

My father’s lungs were full of fluid and he couldn’t swallow any more. Nina told us to lay him flat and put him on his side. Mike let daddy put his weight on him as we rolled him onto his side. When we tried to re-position him, he began begging for something.

“Ahh waa ahhh… Ahh wah…”

He wants something.

“What do you want, daddy?”

“Ahh waa…”

Mom and Mike and I were in rapped attention.

“Ahh wahh ah.”

“He wants ICE!” I yelled as I sprinted downstairs. I am sure that is what he wants! I speak his language!

I came back upstairs and gave him ice. He thanked me in our secret language. He said “I love you,” and he said it to my mom and I told her.

“She has been doing this for days,” mom said to Nina.

His lungs were filling up and his death-rattle was getting worse. The ice was melting in his mouth. Mucus was spilling out and I would wipe it with a towel. No big deal. The wonders of modernity makes this much easier, I would assure everyone.

Mike gave a little speech to him about how he was a Marine and how he could be honorably discharged, Captain. My mom was there and we were all affirming that it was time to go. “To Valhalla!” I cheered, and he moaned with the same cadence, “to Valhalla!” he was trying to moan with his eyes still half-closed.

Nina gave him morphine but we agreed as a group that this was inhumane. Nina told us that she would call an ambulance and that it would be best if we could take him *into* hospice so that they could administer and IV and increase his morphine. Part of me was like “WHAT THE FUCK? THIS WAS AN OPTION?” but the overwhelming majority of my personality decided to stay cool. We ordered the ambulance.

“It is going to be an hour,” Nina told us.

“An hour! That is ridiculous!” and Nina agreed. It was late and that is just the way this works. She assured us that this was all very standard.

Mom left the room for a minute and Mike and I were paying a lot of attention to my father. Suddenly, Nina stood up and took my father’s blood-oxygen and checked his pulse. Then, she walked over to dad’s face and leaned over him. His eyes were closed.

“Ernest, I need you to listen to me and I need you to trust me. You need to go. You need to walk into the light.” His eyes opened wide. I leaned in front of him so he could see my face.

She kept on. “You are surrounded by people you love and it is time for you to go to the other side. People are waiting for you there. It is time to let go of this life, Ernest.”

“We are proud of you daddy,” I said. Mike agreed that we are proud. “You are so strong, Marine.”

“Go get his wife,” Nina commanded. Mike went.

As he lay dying, his eyes focused on my mother as she walked into the room. They followed her, his big blue eyes, with all of the strength he could summon. “I love you so much, Ernie. You are my heart,” she told her dying husband as her heart was breaking. I could feel all of our hearts breaking.

His eyes relaxed and I put my face close and I knew he was focused on my face then. “I love you,” I told him and I could see that he was in there, but that his brain was shutting down.

Thanks to a Discovery Channel documentary I saw in the late 90s on brain activity on death probably titled “Is There An Afterlife?” where scientists tell you “here is the deal with your brain as you die,” I knew that there was approximately 11 minutes of electrical brain activity after your body stops technically being alive. Nina tried to shut his eyes but I told everyone I needed 11 minutes. My dad’s tongue moved and I announced the 11 minute fact and Nina said “take as long as you need.”

I stayed there and stayed with his face. I was completely calm and in control. I think my mom and Mike were crying in the background but the house could have been on fire and I would not have noticed. His body changed. I knew that he had been changing now, for a year and a half. His earlobes, for example, had mysteriously disappeared over time. His lips, his skin, his ability to laugh. His ability to hold me. His ability to chop a tree down, to eat giant bowls of ice cream like we did in Paris. The man who flipped me over his arms when I was little and let his four children climb him like a tree was gone and had been gone. The man who flew airplanes and climbed mountains had faded into the background. Cancer has tested his mettle. He went through organ-removal for a Whipple surgery that put him back together wrong, he still got up one day later to set goals of how far he could walk around the hospital. He shocked the nurses and the doctors by pushing through pain like it didn’t exist. “Pain pills will only slow me down,” he said as he climbed out to bed to fight on.

The only thing we had left in the end was his heart. The only thing we had left in the end was our heartbreak.

“Families are forever,” he always told us. According to our DNA profiles, I share the Paternal Haplogroup R-L21 with my dad. I am 50% of him. Kristen is 50%. She has his feet, his parenting-style, and his soft heart. Daniel is 50%. He has his toughness, his kindness and his eyes. David is 50% he has his mathematical mind, his calming quiet, and his mannerisms. I am 50% and I have his love of history and his face when I laugh.

All we need to do is be together and we can see my father. Like a magic trick, a small mercy. It is something that he would have been cheerful about.