LET'S JUST DO THIS....

A while ago I had started to write about my father's death, thinking that I would share it in case anybody else had suffered a similar loss. I began to do so, and then stopped. I am going to complete it now. I will take snippets from a day here and a day there, as I spent so much time in the hospital that I actually have enough stuff to fill a book. It's how I dealt with it; it's how I handle everything. To this day, I have not displayed one bit of emotion to anybody. But, should anybody stumble upon this and they are going through the same experience---an ill person, the death of somebody they care for, I hope it helps. It's taken directly from my datebook, as I wrote it.
.
I had been writing quietly in the room when the nurse asked what I was doing. I told her about the Topamax; how I had been put on it for my migraines and it made me feel like an idiot---that I forced myself to write to rewire my head. She spotted one of the photos of Dad I had stuck into the book and asked if she could see it. In it, he was vibrant and young. She was really fascinated by it and couldn't quite place it with the sick person in the bed, who had water seeping out of every pore in his body. She asked if she could show the other nurses and I told her, "Sure." They conceded that he looked so strong and sporty, etc.
.
Summer was not willing to give up its now final grasp on things. It was holding on, with a tenuous hold, and not ready to give up the ghost. I stood in the hospital window and looked out at the lot of trees behind me. There's a path where the workers slink off, like kids in high school, for a smoke. I had seen an orange/tan tabby there one day (later in the parking lot) and I kept hoping I would catch one more glimpse of him.
.
I stood and watched on this warm, golden day, as the leaves came down. They spun and danced on their inevitable fall from grace. I could not help but think that it was the perfect metaphor for what was going on. Inside these walls are people with roots still set. Many still feel vital in their core; the sap certainly isn't dry yet. As with the leaves, though, things are slipping away. Bit by bit, there is a letting go. The decline may be piecemeal or some furious gust may bring the entire barrage down in one event. No matter...the striping away and death of that wondrous and vital living thing is melancholy, for we know what's to come. It is harsh and ugly and cold. It is stark and barren. No hope lives here. All the people in this hospital with pasts and stories, every bit as colourful as these russet leaves. All of them trying to fight the decay, be it disease or age or time.
.
The nurse watched me as I worked on a poem. I guess she found me odd, as most people read National Enquirer magazines up here. I just do really bad Sylvia Plath.
.
There is no light here,
On this dying planet or star.
This black shadow, lost
.....In space.....
Adrift like those death nets
Ocean webs with no escape.
Where once was life,
A void, a blank.
Victim to gravity's force.
Sucked ever inward, a giant implodes.
It's true then, that saying:
"In space, nobody can hear you scream."
.
Hospital---room unknown. There's a sign on the door keeping it restricted to "Family Only." It's like a reverse quarantine of sorts, or in a way, but it's feelings and emotions that get contained.
Mom and E just left. I need to say goodbye. I only just got here. I didn't make it. But really, I said my goodbyes already because I knew that he wasn't going to make it. That's what all of these pictures and this writing has been about. It's been my message to him.
I had a really bad feeling at work last night. I had said to somebody that I was tempted to drive out there and book it. I went home and I looked at things on the internet about the illness.
I got up around 1700 hours and laid there. I was exhausted as I hadn't slept. The feeling though...something needled. I'd said it to S earlier on the phone that I knew; I just knew. S tried to help by saying Dad was a fighter, but there's only so much. It gets hard and pain and the lack of dignity engendered by disease can allow for that surrender. It's like when people are lost in the snow and at some point they just get too tired of it all. The easy escape of sleep and what it ultimately entails is too inviting.
He was not a man meant for diapers and bedpans. He was proud. He was the person in those old pictures I had shown the nurses.
His skin is cold. Gone is that ruddy complexion of his. Forever closed are those very warm, kind, brown eyes.
I will never see him again, although this is not really even his face that I am looking at. He is ...or was...a bigger man with vibrancy and vitality.
Does writing make it real for me or is it just another way to detach? I look at life from some other place?
I have to go now; Mom is alone. She'd not eaten well. I have to move; to admit it is real...to walk away.
I must finally say it...
Goodbye.
(Unknown Hospital Room)