[thenightwriterblog] The Night Writer: In My Father's House, Conclusion

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Posted by The Night Writer:
In My Father's House, Conclusion
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1194844355.shtml


   The house looked all too familiar. My sister and my uncles had removed
   all the appliances and equipment brought in over the past few months
   that had never seemed to fit. His chair, his bed, are now as theyâve
   always been. I know better than his dog, who wanders the house looking
   up quizzically and runs to the patio door when he thinks he hears
   someone, but standing in the family room I still half-expected to see
   him when I turned around, or when I heard a footstep in the kitchen.
   What I wasn't expecting at all was to go into the grocery store or the
   gas station in the small town and see a black-bordered card by the
   cash register, announcing his passing. Iâd forgotten how things were
   done in here where just about everybody knows everyone else. Iâd seen,
   maybe, hundreds of these cards when I lived here but never pictured
   his name on them, let alone my own in the body copy. Later, driving
   some things over to the funeral home I was still taken aback to read
   his name and the times for the visitation and the funeral on the
   marquis facing the street.
   My father passed away Monday night, October 29, due to ... what,
   exactly? It's kind of complicated, so I suppose you could say he died
   of "complications." Was it the lymphoma he'd been battling? The
   chemotherapy itself? The realization that living with the pain only
   meant yet another day of living with the pain?
   I saw him wasting away, of course. In June. In September. Was it only
   last [1]December that we had all been together and so happy? Thursday
   morning, October 25th, my mom called me at work (I'd taken to keeping
   my cell phone on and with me even in the office) from the hospital
   where heâd been for a week fighting a kidney infection; where he'd had
   another torso scan to check on the progress of the cancer. There was
   to be consultation with his oncologist the next day, could I be there?
   How could I not. Plain, but unspoken, was the thought that they would
   say the cancer was still spreading and there was nothing more they
   could do. I took an early morning flight Friday, and arrived at the
   hospital just moments after theyâd moved him from his room into the
   ICU. When I caught up with him he had an oxygen mask covering the
   lower half of his face, the straps making his ears stick out even
   further, his head bald as a newbornâs. Despite the oxygen his whole
   body fought for each breath, filling and releasing in a series of
   rapid convulsions. I took his hand and could feel his pulse through
   his palm.
   My mother, my brother, my mother's brother and I met with the
   oncologist. Good news: the cancer was stable, it had not spread
   further. Bad news: he had developed blood clots in his lungs from the
   chemo. This was dire. He might not live through the weekend. By the
   afternoon, however, he was better, breathing easier, able to talk,
   still able to understand. He thirsted, and I put the tiny sponge to
   his lips so he could drink. I, his first child, shared some news of
   his first grandchild, and the monitor showed his heart-rate spiking.
   âThat ⦠was ⦠your ⦠heart ⦠then,â he said. Yes. Yes it was.
   Saturday morning I held my phone to his ear so he could talk to my
   youngest daughter, Tiger Lilly; as always, he teased her a little.
   Saturday afternoon my brother and I picked up our sister at the
   airport, just 15 minutes from the hospital. Saturday evening my father
   and I said our good-byes. They were brief because there wasn't much
   left unsaid between us. Sunday morning I had an early flight back to
   St. Paul because there were things I had to do, first. Then calling my
   mother when I got home, hearing he had asked to be disconnected from
   everything except what was dripping into him for the pain. Monday
   evening my mother was at his bedside, talking on the phone to my
   sister back at the house, saying that he had been breathing much
   easier for the past five minutes and was resting peacefully, and then,
   as she said it, he stopped. âSay good-bye to your father,â she cried,
   thrusting the cellphone toward his ear as the nurse rushed in. Then
   the phone was ringing at my house, and once again I was on the road,
   toward a familiar place that was never going to be the same again.

                                  ********

   In a time like this you really appreciate the âcommuneâ of community:
   prayers and condolences come in from friends, co-workers and the
   blogging community just as the food showed up at my mom's house: hams,
   chili, soups, cakes, pies, more ham, doughnuts, fruit â the bread of
   life as friends and even acquaintances near and far stretch out their
   hands to hold you up. Some because they share your memories of the
   departed, all of them because they share the knowledge or the
   experience that this is a time [2]common to all of us; this week it
   was you, last week or next week, them. I could feel the thoughts and
   prayers of those far away, nearly as tangibly as the line of those who
   brought the embrace of communal comfort: hug, pat, pat. Sometimes,
   three pats.
   When I was younger I couldn't quite understand why people went to
   visitations or funerals. You only had a few moments with the family
   before moving on, and wasn't it hard for them to stand there having to
   greet all those people when they'd rather be off grieving somewhere in
   private? I've had a different understanding and appreciation, though,
   for the last ten years or so. "Paying your respects," always sounded
   like such a cliche until I experienced how important and comforting it
   was to see and hear from people what my father had meant to or done
   for them; there were a lot of friends and family of course, and many,
   many people I did not recognize.
   The funeral was a "celebration of life," and several of my father's
   friends from the Masonic Lodge and/or the golf course shared moving
   and often hilarious stories. Men of a generation not known for crying
   wept openly nonetheless. With tight lips and throat I somehow kept it
   (mostly) together through the eulogy I offered, perhaps because in a
   way I had been preparing for it all my life. After we rode out to the
   cemetery my wife, an ordained minister and police chaplain, spoke the
   scripture and the prayer and then my oldest daughter stood in the
   bright sunlight beside the casket and on that hillside in the great,
   open air absolutely filled every ear (and I hope every heart) as she
   sang a cappella, an old hymn:
   There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuelâs veins;
   And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
   Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
   And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
   Eâer since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
   Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
   And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
   Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
   Related posts:
   [3]In My Father's House, Part 1
   [4]In My Father's House, Part 2
   [5]In My Father's House, Part 3
   [6]Turning Toward the Mourning
   [7]Shifting the Sun

References

   1. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1167538953.shtml
   2. http://bradley1969.blogspot.com/2007/11/sun-is-setting.html
   3. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1178144910.shtml
   4. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1192045631.shtml
   5. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1192422968.shtml
   6. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1193716929.shtml
   7. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1193749038.shtml