***
And I am haunted. I don’t know how to express this, sometimes. How it still stops me in the middle of the day, and I am overcome by it, how it catches up to me just before sleep and I cannot because of thinking of him.
Mostly I am just struck again and again by the last day I spent with him, how we did not expect that it would happen so suddenly; it is the knowledge—and that I must ultimately accept that knowledge—that I will never have any idea what he was thinking or feeling when he did pass. Or if he even knew he was passing; a ‘massive cardiac event’, they called it, occurs so quickly you are often dead before you could even become cognizant anything is happening to you.
It’s not about being there when it happened; unlike my mother, I am okay with the fact I did not witness his death because I do know he would have wanted it that way. He was very private in his suffering; my mother and I (and one day, my sister) were the only ones he would allow to come see him in the hospital. He would not want others to be there to see him go.
***
In my notebook I wrote a few weeks after my dad passed (Sept 15 2011):
It scares me when I can’t quite remember those individual last days, the little details of the time I spent in the hospital with him. All I can distinctly feel is the ache of it, of seeing him too fatigued to even speak much, of his confusion, and the helplessness of knowing there was so little I could do. Bring him another blanket, take the water glass and tilt the straw up to his lips, adjust the oxygen tubes, remove his glasses and carefully fold him onto the nightstand before he fell asleep again.
I try to remind myself my being there helped him; I would think of how indignant I was initially when I came home from Scotland the first time and he didn’t have much to say to me, but feeling better when Mama told me that it just made him happy I was there, he just appreciated my presence there, with him, being silent together. I know it helped him, but that too makes me ache. How he would call me to help him walk up the stairs when he was still at home; then, the afternoon before he was taken by ambulance, to just sit in his room with him, because he felt so anxious, his breath was short, and he was afraid.
I am trying to construct a narrative of his last day. Of talking to him that morning; he was sitting up, sort of staring at the newspaper when I came in. How he asked me if Jack Layton had died, and I said, yes, he had. “That was fast,” he whispered, eyes widening. I told him I was going to postpone going back to Scotland right away, to stay home for a bit and help him when he got out of the hospital. How he got alarmed, and annoyed with me, told me to go hurry up and finish my PhD, but then softened and told me how much he appreciated me offering to stay. He slept a little while, and I did the millionth crossword puzzle I’d done that week.
Mama came, we found out it was not amyloidosis causing Dad's present state. Good news, yes. I left, went to meet Jason after work and cried on the sofa in SUB because despite the supposed good news I was realizing something I couldn't even begin to articulate. Went back to the hospital, to see him while he had his dinner—I cut the chicken parmigiana into tiny little morsels and fed them to him, his last meal. My heart was breaking at this, into tiny pieces at the full circle I felt had been turning since he got sick, the slow turning that I was already parenting my parents. But I made jokes about airplanes. I promised I would come early and be there to feed him his lunch the next day.
And Mama and I came, and we rubbed cold, swollen feet together, covered them in more warm blankets. I kissed his mountain-man whiskers, told him I loved him. He said it again to me, thanked me as I walked out the door. He waved to me, a slow opening and closing of his palm, the way he always did lately, too tired to move any more.
I need to remember these things. I need to because it just pains me so much that I will never know how it was when he died. I woke up the next morning to Uncle Ron throwing pine cones at Jason’s window and I was struggling to understand why I heard his voice and put clothes on and see him standing there with Mama telling me that Dad had passed away.
And it pains me so much that I will never know. I want to know, I have this need to know because if there is anything that ever comforts me it usually involves knowing. But I will never know his last moments, whether he was even conscious, if there was any struggle or raging, of if it was just a sleeping exhale, a ceasing unaware.
And what he told Mama after I left, about the brightest light he’d ever seen, earlier that morning while sitting in his chair before I came, there with the curtains drawn and through the window the most striking whiteness. Was that extra love and goodbye he sent to me as I left the room his way of telling me he knew? Did he know it was coming? Did he understand that light as a premonition? (Mama told him he was dizzy, needed to eat more)
I just want to know if he knew, and I know I won’t, I can’t. These narratives we construct are just ways to try to convince ourselves, comfort ourselves. I know death has little to do with the one dying, really.
When it all comes down to it, I am relieved, relieved I could be there, could say what I needed to say. Deeply honoured that I was close enough to him for him to allow me, ask me to care for him in those last days. I cannot convey, as much as I try, how much this means to me. To be there felt sacred. He gave me life, and he gave me so much in my life that has made me. I wish I could have given so much more, but I am thankful I could give this much. It was all that could be given. I know this.
But still, I just cannot bear the thought of him hurting, that he may have suffered in the dying, because I know he was suffering before. I can’t stand that. Can’t handle that. Cannot. Haunted by that.
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