Day 16 - February 4
We hadn’t discussed Dr. Smith’s words since the Wednesday before, at Jay's Diner. After leaving Dr. Smith’s office we treated father to lunch at Jay’s before his dialysis. He ordered broiled fish and looked across the table at us, “Tell me, what did you hear Dr. Smith say?” Steven barely spoke half a sentence in return before father closed his eyes, nodding off.
Dialysis is still on our schedule this Monday. It is not up to Steven or me to decide when his treatments will end. We assure father the decision is his. His neighbor helps walk him down the stairs and into his car. I turn left at the Big 10 theater complex. It could be the routine of any Monday in the last year--the same preparation, route, accessories, nurses and procedure.
Every time, after setting father up at the unit, I exhale a long breathe of relief. For four hours he is in the hands of medical professionals. They care for him, monitor him--they are there for him. I choose to run errands, becoming extremely familiar with nearby Wal-Mart, Lowes, Starbucks, Wegmans, and the mall. I purchase warm shirts for dialysis days and apricot juice for drinks in the night. I hunt down Polish foods, Olive Garden salads and sugar-free cough drops. Errands accomplished, I fall asleep in the leather lounge chair at Borders, a book or magazine falling out of my hand, an iced latte melting, until instinct wakes me in time to collect father at the end of his treatment.
However, today does not feel the same. I drive out of the parking lot searching for some meaning in any errand, but find none. The familiar relief does not take hold. Turning the car around, I re-enter father’s world--his reclined chair where tubes tether him to calculations and promise, where he used to dream about what he wanted for dinner, what he would do the next day, week or year, but today he simply dozes. I drape my coat over a vacant chair, pull up the round stool on wheels, and wait for him to open his eyes.
His first words are, “Cher, tell me again exactly what Dr. Smith said.”
I hold his hand and look into his eyes. Leaning in, I quietly remind him, “Dr. Smith said he can’t be positive, but he thinks you have two to three weeks to live, or maybe even two to three days.” He listens while the nurse adjusts the dialysis machine. I can see the words are fresh to him. Then, instead of nodding off, his face starts to brighten.
Father smiles up at the nurse and points his right index finger like he has something very important to say. “I’m going on a trip,” he tells her.
“Oh, really, where are you going?”
“It’s a far, far better place than you can ever imagine.”
“Well, that sounds like quite a trip. When are you going.”
"Soon, very soon”
He begins to thank the nurse for all she has done for him over the last year, telling her how much he appreciates her and the others. It slowly dawns on her what he means about his trip. “Oh no, no, don’t talk like that,” she implores him. He continues telling her he is looking forward to such a wonderful place.
Her eyes fill up. I ask her, “When you think about it, it’s really a good thing that he has this chance to thank you and say his good-byes, isn't it?”
No latte or magazine, no nap in Borders--I share his four hours in the unit. I witness joy coil up from his deepest core. I feel his transition from a life of dreaming and doing on earth, to a life of dreaming and readying for a new promise.
On the ride home in the dark winter Rt. 390 journey, he raises his head from a nap, “Cher, I want Paul Johannsen….” Then
.nods off.
A few minutes later he opens his eyes, “I want Norm Moran…” Off again.
After another doze, “...and the Malone’s, and of course, Mike and Elsie…”
These friends have been in father’s life for more than fifty years. I ask before he nods off, “Dad, what do you want? What is it you want from Paul and Norm and the others?”
One more time before sleeping the rest of the way home, he whispers, “I want them to be there. I just want them to be there.”
No comments:
Post a Comment