Dad and Me - February 2006
Me and my FolksI’d like to share one last story about my Dad. And it really is the last story.
February 3, 2009
This morning, Mom, my sister Susan and I meet with the medical team. Dad has been hooked up to a BIPAP machine for breathing. This is a plastic bubble that fits over his face and is pressurized so that the lungs are blown open and oxygenation is better. Dad is struggling with it and I think he would be better without it. It’s a stressful meeting but eventually everyone agrees. The bubble should come off. If nothing else it will allow Dad to talk and let us know what he really wants us to do.
We re-group in Dad’s room and the nurse unhooks the BIPAP machine and takes off the bubble. She puts Dad on plain oxygen. Dad’s first words are, “What a relief!” Within minutes he is talking with Mom, Susan and me.
“Hey,” I think. “ Pulling the plug isn’t as sad as I thought. No question this is what Dad wants.”
We talk about the good old days. Dad gets reports on all the relatives – especially Sophie and Norman, the Kenyan boy with the new heart valves. We talk about the barbershop we used to go to and Dad remembers the barber’s name – Bill Wilkins.
Dad tells us all about the recent salmonella peanut butter scare, including where the manufacturing plant is located. Apparently, being in a coma is no excuse for missing out on the latest fear-mongering from CNN.
I tell him stupid jokes and we laugh together.
Two termites walk into a pub and one asks: ‘Is the bar tender here?’
How much did they pay Johnny Depp to have his ears pierced for “Pirates of the Caribbean”? A buccaneer.
My favorite image is when Susan and I leave the room to go out to lunch. We look back and see Mom and Dad holding hands and looking at each other. Wow!
By evening, it’s just me and my Dad in the hospital room. I call the nurse to help get him up in a chair.
“Is there anything else I can get you?” I ask.
“Ice cream,” Dad whispers and he winks at me conspiratorially.
I score a couple of vanilla Hoodsies from the fridge in the visitors lounge and we sit watching ‘Star Trek’ while he takes small bites of the ice cream. It’s doubly delicious because we have to keep hiding it from the nurses. He’s not supposed to have anything to eat. We feel like playful small boys pulling a fast one on the authorities.
Play and adventure – that’s how we show the God of Monkeys and Apes that we are still alive, even when our hearts are breaking, our wings are drooping and we’re about to lose our grip and fall off life’s trapeze. . .
February 4, 2009
It’s 10:40 PM and I am asleep, caught in the throes of an angry dream. In the dream I have to go somewhere, but my shoes are missing. I know exactly where I left them and they’re not there. Someone has stolen my shoes. I am so mad.
The phone rings and it’s my sister. Dad has taken a turn for the worse. He’s going fast.
I wake Mom but she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, so I go in alone.
Before getting in the car, I look up at the mountain sky, always so bright and clear. The great square of Pegasus is directly overhead and a brilliant half-moon is sailing in the sky beneath.
By the time I get to the hospital Dad is gone. It’s peaceful and OK. Hugs and sadness.
Then on the way back from the hospital, I remember the shoe dream.
“Dad and I always wore the same size – 8 ½ D,” I recall.
Suddenly a light-bulb fires off in my brain.
”Holy smokes,” I realize. “That guy who stole my shoes in the dream must have been Dad!”
“And he didn’t take just one. He took both of them.”
I start to laugh and tears fill my eyes, as I realize that wherever he is going, Dad needs two shoes size 8 ½ D. (Dad had his right leg amputated in a bus accident in 2004.)
The next day I tell Susan my shoe dream. She also had a dream the night Dad died.
My sister dreamed that she and Dad were walking down the street and she suddenly realized that he was walking on both legs! She was happy he wasn’t in a wheelchair in her dream.
“Did you happen to get a look at his shoes?” I ask.
“Not really,” Susan replies.
Take that, you God of Monkeys and Apes!
Manley, the one-legged shoe thief, strikes again.
February 3, 2009
This morning, Mom, my sister Susan and I meet with the medical team. Dad has been hooked up to a BIPAP machine for breathing. This is a plastic bubble that fits over his face and is pressurized so that the lungs are blown open and oxygenation is better. Dad is struggling with it and I think he would be better without it. It’s a stressful meeting but eventually everyone agrees. The bubble should come off. If nothing else it will allow Dad to talk and let us know what he really wants us to do.
We re-group in Dad’s room and the nurse unhooks the BIPAP machine and takes off the bubble. She puts Dad on plain oxygen. Dad’s first words are, “What a relief!” Within minutes he is talking with Mom, Susan and me.
“Hey,” I think. “ Pulling the plug isn’t as sad as I thought. No question this is what Dad wants.”
We talk about the good old days. Dad gets reports on all the relatives – especially Sophie and Norman, the Kenyan boy with the new heart valves. We talk about the barbershop we used to go to and Dad remembers the barber’s name – Bill Wilkins.
Dad tells us all about the recent salmonella peanut butter scare, including where the manufacturing plant is located. Apparently, being in a coma is no excuse for missing out on the latest fear-mongering from CNN.
I tell him stupid jokes and we laugh together.
Two termites walk into a pub and one asks: ‘Is the bar tender here?’
How much did they pay Johnny Depp to have his ears pierced for “Pirates of the Caribbean”? A buccaneer.
My favorite image is when Susan and I leave the room to go out to lunch. We look back and see Mom and Dad holding hands and looking at each other. Wow!
By evening, it’s just me and my Dad in the hospital room. I call the nurse to help get him up in a chair.
“Is there anything else I can get you?” I ask.
“Ice cream,” Dad whispers and he winks at me conspiratorially.
I score a couple of vanilla Hoodsies from the fridge in the visitors lounge and we sit watching ‘Star Trek’ while he takes small bites of the ice cream. It’s doubly delicious because we have to keep hiding it from the nurses. He’s not supposed to have anything to eat. We feel like playful small boys pulling a fast one on the authorities.
Play and adventure – that’s how we show the God of Monkeys and Apes that we are still alive, even when our hearts are breaking, our wings are drooping and we’re about to lose our grip and fall off life’s trapeze. . .
February 4, 2009
It’s 10:40 PM and I am asleep, caught in the throes of an angry dream. In the dream I have to go somewhere, but my shoes are missing. I know exactly where I left them and they’re not there. Someone has stolen my shoes. I am so mad.
The phone rings and it’s my sister. Dad has taken a turn for the worse. He’s going fast.
I wake Mom but she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, so I go in alone.
Before getting in the car, I look up at the mountain sky, always so bright and clear. The great square of Pegasus is directly overhead and a brilliant half-moon is sailing in the sky beneath.
By the time I get to the hospital Dad is gone. It’s peaceful and OK. Hugs and sadness.
Then on the way back from the hospital, I remember the shoe dream.
“Dad and I always wore the same size – 8 ½ D,” I recall.
Suddenly a light-bulb fires off in my brain.
”Holy smokes,” I realize. “That guy who stole my shoes in the dream must have been Dad!”
“And he didn’t take just one. He took both of them.”
I start to laugh and tears fill my eyes, as I realize that wherever he is going, Dad needs two shoes size 8 ½ D. (Dad had his right leg amputated in a bus accident in 2004.)
The next day I tell Susan my shoe dream. She also had a dream the night Dad died.
My sister dreamed that she and Dad were walking down the street and she suddenly realized that he was walking on both legs! She was happy he wasn’t in a wheelchair in her dream.
“Did you happen to get a look at his shoes?” I ask.
“Not really,” Susan replies.
Take that, you God of Monkeys and Apes!
Manley, the one-legged shoe thief, strikes again.
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