More than anyone else I know, my father feared death. It always hit him hard. When my hamster Bernice died 20 years ago, he wiped tears from his eyes as we eulogized her. "She was a good hamster and she loved her wheel," he said, solemnly shoveling dirt on top of the cardboard-box coffin we'd made for her. He'd also fashioned a small wooden tombstone for her; it's still standing at the base of an old oak tree in my parents' front yard.
In late August, we found out that he had eight to 12 weeks to live. Or was it six to eight? I can't remember, and it doesn't matter because the doctor overestimated his time anyway. I knew what my mother was going to say before she said it; I read the news in her eyes. "Does he know?" I asked.
He didn't.
If Dad had been Dad, we would have given him the bad news. But he was Dad only in pieces. During his last months, he often became confused and forgetful. You could tell him something simple and he'd forget it in five minutes. Then again, he might surprise you by remembering the minutiae of a conversation you'd had months earlier. For instance, in the same hour, he confused me with a nurse but remembered the name of a friend's dog who he'd never met. We had no way of knowing what information would remain lodged in the folds of his brain. What we did know was that he wouldn't feel his body slow down; it would be a painless death.
The doctor gave the prognosis to my mother, not to my father. We talked about what to tell him. If we gave him the news, we wondered, would it sink in? Would he remember the terrible reality or would it slip in and out of his understanding? I imagined him going in and out of full lucidity, re-remembering that he was going to die over and over again. Learning that death is close is painful enough; learning it for the first time more than once is just cruel. Or if he did remember the fact that death was coming, wouldn't it torture him? I imagined him going to sleep each night, feeling alone and wondering if he'd wake up in the morning. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the inevitable, and since we knew it would terrify him to know how little time he had left, we settled upon a merciful lie.
We tried to make his last weeks as happy as possible. He laughed with his children, all five of us. He enjoyed chicken fingers and chocolate ice cream and all of the other dietary disasters normally forbidden. I took him outside on a warm day and helped him paint his last painting. On the way inside, he began telling me about his youngest daughter, who lived in San Francisco and just came back from Spain and has two beautiful cats.
During a nursing-home visit, my mom went outside for a smoke or something, leaving my dad and me sitting on his bed. "I want to talk with you," he said. Serious face. "Now, I don't want you worrying about that hospital visit. Doc says I have a good ticker and I'm going to be around a long time."
I tried to smile, but instead I burst into tears. "I'm sorry, it's just that I miss you so much," I told him. "I wish we got to see each other more." I buried my face into his shoulder and he put his hand on top of mine. That was one of the most difficult moments of my life.
Some of my friends judged us for making the decision we did. They said it wasn't fair to hide the news from my father. "Wouldn't you want to know you were dying?" they asked. With the mind I have now, yes. With the mind my father had in his last months, no. No, because emotions get stripped to their rawest state when the mind can't handle complexities. Between the fearful knowledge of certain death and the simple love of family, I would prefer to spend my last days surrounded by the latter. Which is strange, because generally I'd rather deal with cold, brutal truth than a pretty falsehood.
Sometimes I wonder if we should have told him everything. Then I imagine what he would have thought if he were able to fully understand what it all meant. He would have felt small and scared and helpless. I couldn't do that to him. So I think we made the kindest decision possible, given the circumstances.
When Bernice the hamster died, I sobbed and worried about whether her death had been painful. To comfort me, my father said that she probably went to sleep and died without feeling a thing. I believed him because I needed to. This year, he believed me because I needed him to. I'm not sure if I needed him to believe me for his benefit or mine. Maybe both. Whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that I acutely feel his absence today. I miss him so much, fiercely and ineloquently.
In late August, we found out that he had eight to 12 weeks to live. Or was it six to eight? I can't remember, and it doesn't matter because the doctor overestimated his time anyway. I knew what my mother was going to say before she said it; I read the news in her eyes. "Does he know?" I asked.
He didn't.
If Dad had been Dad, we would have given him the bad news. But he was Dad only in pieces. During his last months, he often became confused and forgetful. You could tell him something simple and he'd forget it in five minutes. Then again, he might surprise you by remembering the minutiae of a conversation you'd had months earlier. For instance, in the same hour, he confused me with a nurse but remembered the name of a friend's dog who he'd never met. We had no way of knowing what information would remain lodged in the folds of his brain. What we did know was that he wouldn't feel his body slow down; it would be a painless death.
The doctor gave the prognosis to my mother, not to my father. We talked about what to tell him. If we gave him the news, we wondered, would it sink in? Would he remember the terrible reality or would it slip in and out of his understanding? I imagined him going in and out of full lucidity, re-remembering that he was going to die over and over again. Learning that death is close is painful enough; learning it for the first time more than once is just cruel. Or if he did remember the fact that death was coming, wouldn't it torture him? I imagined him going to sleep each night, feeling alone and wondering if he'd wake up in the morning. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the inevitable, and since we knew it would terrify him to know how little time he had left, we settled upon a merciful lie.
We tried to make his last weeks as happy as possible. He laughed with his children, all five of us. He enjoyed chicken fingers and chocolate ice cream and all of the other dietary disasters normally forbidden. I took him outside on a warm day and helped him paint his last painting. On the way inside, he began telling me about his youngest daughter, who lived in San Francisco and just came back from Spain and has two beautiful cats.
During a nursing-home visit, my mom went outside for a smoke or something, leaving my dad and me sitting on his bed. "I want to talk with you," he said. Serious face. "Now, I don't want you worrying about that hospital visit. Doc says I have a good ticker and I'm going to be around a long time."
I tried to smile, but instead I burst into tears. "I'm sorry, it's just that I miss you so much," I told him. "I wish we got to see each other more." I buried my face into his shoulder and he put his hand on top of mine. That was one of the most difficult moments of my life.
Some of my friends judged us for making the decision we did. They said it wasn't fair to hide the news from my father. "Wouldn't you want to know you were dying?" they asked. With the mind I have now, yes. With the mind my father had in his last months, no. No, because emotions get stripped to their rawest state when the mind can't handle complexities. Between the fearful knowledge of certain death and the simple love of family, I would prefer to spend my last days surrounded by the latter. Which is strange, because generally I'd rather deal with cold, brutal truth than a pretty falsehood.
Sometimes I wonder if we should have told him everything. Then I imagine what he would have thought if he were able to fully understand what it all meant. He would have felt small and scared and helpless. I couldn't do that to him. So I think we made the kindest decision possible, given the circumstances.
When Bernice the hamster died, I sobbed and worried about whether her death had been painful. To comfort me, my father said that she probably went to sleep and died without feeling a thing. I believed him because I needed to. This year, he believed me because I needed him to. I'm not sure if I needed him to believe me for his benefit or mine. Maybe both. Whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that I acutely feel his absence today. I miss him so much, fiercely and ineloquently.
"Ineloquently" is clearly incorrect.
You're kind. Thank you. But it seems ineloquent because I can't precisely explain how it feels. It's close, but not exact. Or maybe sometimes there isn't anything else to say except that you truly miss someone. Thank you, though; you are always so nice to me.