I Bear Witness

I know my dad enough to know that his “passing” won’t matter as much as finding out what’s on the other side. He’s always been a pragmatic man, very simple. His best wisdom to me has stayed the same for years, “Live until the day you’re not alive anymore,” and I’ve taken his philosophy to heart.

I am heartsick and full of grief over the impending loss of my dad. It’s a horrible way to die, even senseless, but seriously and I mean it: all of us die. He gets that. He would have liked the chance to live longer, but he can’t. He’s not going to choose bitterness about it and neither am I.
I swear to all that’s holy this one true thing: love will always compel me. That makes no sense at all, so let me explain. I’ll give you a real example. My mother is, on her best days, difficult, but she’s my mother, so I’ll take care of her in the best way I can. A part of taking care of her, and maybe more importantly, acting like a grown up is this: I won’t whine about my responsibilities. Why not? Well for me it’s this (like I said): love compels me. If I whine and bitch and moan, where’s the love?

I worry that my mom will not be able to face losing him. I’m afraid she’ll buckle and hide. She hides most of the time and Dad’s the only person she’s allowed into her life. Staring into the future and the loss of him is impossible for her, far too hard, so she gave herself a break.

Interestingly enough, Dad woke up enough to eat a whole bowl of Cheerios with sliced bananas. He drank a glass of orange juice too; all this from the man who couldn’t swallow the day before. See how we are? Two days ago I was sure he was going to die. Today he eats Cheerios. It doesn’t change anything, but it says something cool – at least to me.

O water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand,
All night long crying with a mournful cry,
As I lie and listen, and cannot understand
The voice of my heart in my side or the voice of the sea,
O water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I?
All night long the water is crying to me.

Unresting water, there shall never be rest
Till the last moon droop and the last tide fail,
And the fire of the end begin to burn in the west;
And the heart shall be weary and wonder and cry like the sea,
All life long crying without avail,
As the water all night long is crying to me.
–Arthur Symons

This morning while I was working on homework the phone rang. “Hi honey. This is Mom. Talk to your father,” she said. I heard the rustling of the transfer from her to him.
“Hi,” Dad said.
“Hi Dad. I love you. How are you?”
He can’t make sentences that make much sense to the uninitiated, but sometimes (when angels thoughtfully whisper the meanings into my ear) I can understand what he’s trying to say.
“They have me captured here. I want to go home. I don’t know who this lady is,” he tried to say.
“Who is that lady who handed me the phone?” he asked.
“That’s my mom. Her name is JoAnn. She’s your wife.”
“Oh.”
“Dad, are you scared?” I asked.
“So scared,” he said.
I told him I was sorry, that I loved him, that he was the most important person to me in all of my life.
“Really?” he asked.
I told him that I pray for him every day. “I think of you all day long and I worry about you. I want you to know how loved you are.”
He started to cry.
“Hold on, I have to blow my nose.” He blew it loudly right into the phone and we laughed.
For some reason, on this day, May 13, 2009, he knew exactly who I was. Mom told me later that he was trying to call me, but he couldn’t work the phone, so she punched in my number and handed it to him.
He told me he loved my art and that some of it is hanging on the wall. I told him I loved his art too.
He was crying too hard to talk, so he handed the phone back to mom.
And that was that.
Tonight I got another call from my mom. He’s had a psychotic break: thrashing all over the house looking for bad people, hurting himself in his panic, and terrifying my mom. She called for help. She called for help again. She called a third time to say, “Please come right away. He’s hurting himself,” and he had. He has deep gashes on his forehead – two of them. I can guarantee you that nobody wants to sew up the skin of his head. Not with CJD. Hospice has taken him away. It’s likely they’ll have to keep him medicated so much that today’s conversation is the last one we’ll have before he passes away.
My mother wouldn’t go to the hospital with him. “I just couldn’t,” she explained. My brother and his wife are on their way, to make sure he’s settled comfortably so they can call her to say, “Everything’s okay,” so she’ll go to bed.
I am grateful for the chance to tell my father how much he means to me. I’m grateful he understood what I said. Even if it was just a moment in time, love found a way to reach his terrified soul.
Please pray for this gentle man. I’d appreciate it if you would.

April 2, 2009
I’m sitting at my father’s computer. He doesn’t know how to use it anymore. My brother Ralph arrived from Maui yesterday. He’s weed whacking in the canyon. I’m trying to stay above the emotional tidal wave.
I’ve been in denial about CJD because it’s too big – too devastating. I couldn’t see any of the signs at Christmas when we were last here for a visit.

His hand shakes uncontrollably now. He walks slowly and often almost falls.

I’m not in denial anymore.

In a quiet moment between my brother and I, his body bends in two. Deep sorrow. Heavy sobs.

Our father is an excellent man.

I don’t have time to send even a quick note to the people I love, so please forgive this quick entry as my sign of life and a wave to you (and you, and especially you).

Jim wants me to write a children’s book about the faeries in my garden. “Ask Adagio to illustrate the book,” he said.

More later. There’s a spider on the nearby wall. I need to run away.