Dad

He was so strong, even in his 60s, that I was sure, despite his lifetime of smoking and daily drinking, he would make it through. Sure, he'd puke and feel miserable, he'd lose weight from the chemo and lose his hair, but in 6 months, he'd be a new man with an external bladder. As he put it, "it's just plumbing." I mean, bladder cancer has a survival rate of 80%, and if anyone was built to survive, it was Dad.

But strong has nothing to do with it. Nor does effort. Just days before he died, he was hauling his wasted body up a flight of stairs with no handrail because he was working to regain his strength. It turns out he had no platelets, no red blood cells, and pneumonia, and even the fatigue that comes with one of those conditions, let alone all three, couldn't kill his will. When he went to the hospital for a check up, his sister-friend Barb and Susan, the girlfriend he refused to call girlfriend, the woman he would have called wife if he hadn't been so burned by his last divorce, used an office chair to roll him to the car. Barb told me he couldn't remember how to get to the hospital from his house, along roads he'd driven his entire life. And when he moved to the wheelchair to go inside, his pants fell to his ankles because he was easily 70 pounds lighter than he was when he was diagnosed. 

Susan kept us in the loop, even though I don't think he really wanted us in it. He'd rather we preserve an image of him as the Captain, the man with the cover and the concealed carry license, the guy who was as steady in a stick-up as he was while cleaning his own mother's bottom at her end. He was totally unfazed, and while that hurt deeply when I was a kid and he was a distant dad, I grew to appreciate that part of him the most as an adult. It was a tough lesson to learn to have no expectation of people you love, particularly a parent, but it freed me from hurt and disappointment more than I even realize. 

We didn't talk often, but he did write me letters and forward invites to the annual family reunion and keep me posted on deaths and births and marriages. The last few years, he'd trek to Kentucky to bring us some of his homemade deer jerky and a $100 bill for Christmas. When we were together for our annual summer visit for 4th of July, a holiday he made matter, we'd get a fire going and he'd make me laugh. Our politics couldn't have been farther apart, nor could our religious beliefs, but somehow we had a lot in common. He told great stories and got a kick out of little things. He loved the outside. He was a smart ass, with a sideways smirk and a twinkle in his eye that was always looking for a good time. For me, he was that parent that you look at and go, "oh, that's why I'm like this." 

I value my own physical strength more than physical beauty because of him. I'm not afraid to try things that are traditionally reserved for men because of him. I don't feel anyone else is responsible for my happiness or life choices but me because of him. I married the man I married because of him. I like solitude. I owe the parts of myself that are the biggest, the most pronounced, the most valuable to me, to him. 

When I got to the hospital to be with him, after Mack drove me 24 hours straight, I gave him a hug and said, "Wow, I didn't expect you to take Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death so hard, Dad." He peeped his eyes just to give me the glare that was our playful exchange. His hug felt amazing, warm and safe despite the fact that I outweighed him by 30 pounds. I sat with him and held his hand, and when he opened his eyes and saw me and I smiled behind my mask, he said, "Sorry." I don't know what it was for, I can imagine a million things, but I didn't want to hear it. I told him, "Don't you dare, you have nothing to be sorry for. You are an awesome dad and I love you." He responded with, "I love you too baby," and closed his eyes. 

The next three days are burned into my memory, and I keep reliving each moment over and over at the most inopportune times. It's sweet agony. I want to hang on to them, but I need to move past them. Our relationship was so much more than those three days, but those three days were sacred, intimate, intense days of love and fear and courage and laughter. Shannon sent a video of Nynie on the beach saying, "Love you so much, Grampa Greg," and when I showed it to him, he smiled the last smile I saw him muster. I had to call my step-sister Christie and give her the news, and my heart broke again hearing hers shatter. Leiah came to be with him also, and we sat on her bed in the hotel one night eating peanut butter pie right from the box with plastic spoons and relishing how lucky we've been in life lately, aside from the event bringing us together. When I said good night to her the next night, I had to tell her to cover her eyes because they were looking too much like Dad's and she was going to make me cry. 

They did a CT scan on Dad, which showed more cancer in his lungs, liver, and kidneys, maybe even in his brain but they didn't scan that part. I held his hand when the doctor came in to tell us the news, which we knew was bad thanks to the gift of summation by his excellent nurse... who turned out to be a relative, of course. Dad was as unfazed as ever, but I did see the tiniest tear appear on the lower lid of his right eye. He kept his eyes closed and brought it back into himself, stuffing it in the bottle he kept deep in his belly where he shoved all his intense feelings. I inherited that from him, but my bottle is admittedly leaky. He asked the doctor how long he had, and was given days to weeks. Dad held up his index finger and said, "One." I said, "Are you giving us one more day, you have one day?" He nodded. 

I immediately moved into action mode. "Where do you want to go? Where do you want to spend your one day?" He wouldn't answer until the next day. I guess it needed to sink in. His action meant dying, and I guess he needed to get square with that before giving out orders. The next morning, when Leiah and I walked into his hospital room, he said, "I'm ready to go home, I reckon." I told him we could do that, but I wanted him to know that the getting there part was going to suck. At one point, while talking about the stress of transport, I said, "If we can make people who've had their legs blown off tolerate a helicopter ride, we can get him comfortable." Dad piped up and said, "No fuckin' helicopters." The room erupted in laughter. I'm not sure if his trip via copter to Indy in August inspired the strong reaction or if it was the bill on his table for that ride for nearly $40,000 that did it. 

Helping Dad die was such a surreal experience that I was so grateful when the nursing element came in. Something familiar that I could cling to. A role I felt human in. A tether to this world. A distraction from myself. Turning him. Giving medications and tracking the times and doses. Checking his pulse and counting his respirations. Monitoring his urinary output. There is so much strength in caring for others. 

Friends came to visit, and the room filled with laughter at some of the stories we heard. It also filled with sadness as the severity of his disappearance hit people in the face. Barb was an angel who manifest miracles in the times of Covid. I fell in love with Susan for loving him so much and so delicately during this whole process. My cousin Kristin brought all her mom energy and pointed us on the path to the right decisions without telling us what to do. Leiah and Christie were sources of joy and comfort, as was Shannon even though she was stuck in Florida. We were a bunch of women helping a man do an impossible thing for him. 

He died late on a Monday, although not pronounced until early Tuesday morning. The nurse in me couldn't help but look at the clock when I saw the last pulse run through his neck. Time of death, per the microwave clock, 11:29pm. He always used to tell Susan "10 o'clock, lights out." He stayed up late to hang out with us a little longer, I guess. 

I had been giving him morphine and Ativan around the clock, but despite the meds, he started sweating from breathing so hard and fast. He was taking huge gulps of air that clattered his teeth. I called the Hospice nurse and asked him to come to the house. We gave him a big dose of morphine, and after about 20 minutes his breathing slowed. The nurse left. We sat with him. Then his breathing got slower and slower, still gulps, still clattering his teeth. And eventually it stopped. We held him, said goodbyes and I love yous, and Leiah and I fell into our husbands. I looked over at Susan, whispering in his ear, and my heart broke into 1000 more pieces. I still have no idea how she didn't die in that moment too. 

Christie had the good sense to break out the peach Crown Royal. We sipped a shot and waited for the nurse to come back to pronounce him and the funeral home to arrive. I rubbed a little taste on Dad's lower lip. Barb told an amazing story about giving farm animals shots and we laughed again. But the room was notably absent his laughter. He was gone. I still can't believe it.