My Father is Gone

Machines beep to their own rhythm and reason. One can almost recognize a song to the beat after listening long enough. Laughter and tears of joy from one floor of the medical center while cries of anguish echo from another. A sterile odor hangs around like a mist.

Hospitals have always held a paradox to me as every emotion is expressed inside one building. Joy, anger, sadness, resentment, hope, and the realities of human existence all under one roof. New life entering the world on one floor while someone else is having the worst day of their life in an ER.

Dad sleeps more and more these days. I’m lucky to get 5-10 minutes of conversation at a time. The topics range from wanting a new cell phone plan, then turning to the decision of what type of casket he prefers.

The hallucinations are an interesting development. He would point out to me when he saw people standing in the corner of the room. I would ask if they look familiar to him, maybe long dead relatives I only knew from old black and white photographs. But no, they are strangers to him and wouldn’t tell us their names. Sometimes he thinks he’s in a hotel. Or on a train. At least these visuals aren’t scary images.

Small favors.

To hospital staff, they only see another almost 90 year old man wasting away in his bed. A countless process repeated over and over in the medical profession. Nurses are kind and helpful, with eyes full of sympathy when they speak to me, while the doctors discuss the futility of treatments.

They don’t see a life that started in the shadow of the Great Depression in West Texas. A man who was drafted and served his nation. Frail now, but someone who helped provide the nation’s energy needs in the fiercely cold and barren Alaska oil industry. Staff nod politely when, during clearer phases in his memory, he tells them stories of flying his plane across the Alaskan bush. A full life lived, now reduced to waiting to shuffle onto what lies beyond.

“Your Father is the only man who wants you to be better than him.”

- Steve Harvey

I recently came across this quote on how one’s Father wants their Son to achieve more than he did. Obviously, this isn’t a truism in all family dynamics, but it’s how a good relationship should be. My Father was not perfect and had a number of personality traits that I have worked hard not to exhibit. He could be overly critical with words and growing up I didn’t always know where I stood with him. Yet he also provided a safe home and worked hard to give us everything we needed.

It took these last few years with him for me to understand my Father’s rough demeanor and personality. That in his own imperfect way, he wanted me to achieve the most out of this life, and to do better than he did, whether in my professional career or personally. Going through his wallet to find his ID and seeing my boot camp picture or sitting in his office looking at the numerous old photos of us doing family stuff through the years showed me how sentimental he actually was.

You don’t fully feel like an adult until you’re sitting at a funeral home going over a parents’ burial wishes. It’s one thing to believe you understand your own mortality, yet quite another to read what a loved one had to contemplate and put to paper for their own, knowing that you too will be doing this one day. Casket model, burial service song selection, how the obituary will be worded, all of it laid bare on paper.

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We are almost done with this journey.

Hospice care had to be arranged. Once he stopped eating and couldn’t speak clearly or walk, it was the inevitable choice.

There were funny moments as well.

Dad displayed glimpses of his sense of humor at times. During one confused state he requested I give him $20 for a pair of boots. I told him a good pair would probably cost 10X that. “Oh well. Guess I’ll just go barefoot,” he replied before falling back asleep. That was the last thing he said that I could understand.

Most of his affairs were set up for when this time came, but not everything. I found myself playing financial forensic files to ensure that I stopped needless payments and services. Things like streaming channels he was paying for, even though I had added him to the family accounts several years ago. Charity donations and medical prescriptions to be discontinued. Most were simple to cancel with a keystroke or quick phone call.

Except for one company.

I discovered he had a Life Alert subscription, one that when I cancelled had the audacity to call afterwards twice in attempts to get him to re-subscribe. This was even after emailing a hospice memo to them declaring his condition terminal. The first call was right after he passed away and the other while I was driving to the cemetery for his burial service, displaying just how ghoulish the Life Alert company could be.

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The service was a simple one at what I consider our family cemetery. It isn’t ours personally, but walking along the long row of loved ones in the ground makes it feel like it is. The honor guard giving me the flag really drove home the reality of losing Dad.

But as I sit in this empty house surrounded by a thousand memories of him, I know that I will continue this life journey, only now without the one man who always wanted me to be better than him.

RIP, Dad.