oh father....

this is one part memory, one part ode because father's day is always bittersweet.....

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Omar Khayyam

He came calling in the wee hours of the morning. Or shall i say in our mourning...awakened at 4 am to the raspy sounds of fluid rising. Sounds kind of like a coffee maker brewing and now the two are forever associated in my mind.

We held a vigil at his bedside. Actually we just sat there very awkward and unsteady as if vigil were a restless child in our laps. Nervous chatter and blank expressions. One had the suction machine poised to clean up the vile black disease that oozed from his mouth and nose. Ah, but i am ever the restless one so i made the coffee and paced about.

Soon the realization hit that he may stay in this gruesome state for more than an hour (or longer than anyone cared to sit and stare at his laboured breathing). Sylvie's mother woke and her sister and niece did there best to explain his condition. As the three generations of women moved to the kitchen to console her, I offered to stay with him.

I read to him kahlil gibran's "the prophet". I leaned in close so he could hear over his own sounds and read from the beginning, through to the chapter on children, then skipped to the last passage on death and on to the end of the book. I thought it silly to read all of the passages, what being a man of his age and experience. Perhaps selfish of me to only read those things that i like most...Sylvia and her sister came in the room as I finished. I leaned in closer still and whispered I would be back in a while. I went down to the garden to plea….what some people call prayer, but I know better. My direct conversations with god are almost always a plea of some sort.

Her father, my father in-law was a lovely, warm hearted man with small piercing blue eyes. Smiling eyes…they sparkled when he spoke to me. She thought, he had a little ‘thing for me’ and perhaps I reminded him of his first wife Lois. She had been his first true love but broke his heart, clean in two, when she ran off with his best friend during the war . She later died in child birth. Anyway, he was post stroke when I made his acquaintance and prone to fits of tears with little provocation. Once when I was driving him home from the senior center, he turned to me and asked, quite sincerely, if I would stay with him for the rest of his days. I happily agreed and told him I would be honored to spend as many days as I could in his fine company. He cried the rest of the way home. I tried to remember that in the difficult moments during the years we cared for him. He had asked in earnest and i had said Yes! with my whole heart. We kept him home...hospice that stretched out over two years for a man with an indomitable spirit, a contagious belly laugh and the uncanny ability to be cheery in the worse situations. this story i am sharing happened many years ago. I named one of my son after him…was so elated when I found out baby B was also a boy. My twin boys…named for the two finest men I’ve ever known. There was no plea for that….it just happened, because that is how god works in my life.

It was half hour later when I returned to the room to find syl’s niece at his side. She said, " his breathing is really shallow now" and I said "it will be very soon" as i touched his cheek. Two more breaths and he was gone...

For reasons my very own, at that moment i looked straight up and then to the corner of the ceiling and blew kisses to the air. I yelled to the house and everyone came rushing in and i stepped back to the corner of the room. All the while looking up and searching the ceiling for...oh, hell, i don't know...vapors...a shadow...wondering what the room looked like from up there.

Mother was ushered out of the room by her daughters, one on each arm. I asked the teenager to stay with me and for the others not to return until i came for them. We prepared his body...I was mindful to watch over her state and assure her she could leave at any moment it became too harsh. She helped me wash him, remove the foley, his gown and then we dressed him. A rather daper vintage pair of PJ's he fancied, from the fifties. As i combed his hair, it occurred to me that over the course of his care, I had seen more of this mans naked body than I have of any man in my lifetime. I then did my best to mold the muscles in his face into some sort of calm expression, rather than the grimace frozen there. When all seemed "right" the triad of women shuffled in for their farewells...

The last thing I did was cut a rose from the garden. Beautiful deep red rose bud...major lincoln, i think it's called...for Syl to send with him along with the roll of butter rum lifesafers he always carried. i wondered what kind of ash lifesavers make.

I did all that i wish i could have done for my own father, but couldn't. All that I can to ease the pain for my love and these people that had fused to my heart. All that is sacred and ritual in times of passage...all that is family. The things that I remember that were done for me so long ago and what i hope will be done for mine when i'm gone...

and so it is....