“Can you leave work? We really need you here as soon as you can come,” my mother said with the desperation cutting through the lines even though she tried valiantly to hide it from me.
        My mom never called anyone at work, in fact in the years that I did live at home I can
honestly say she had never called my dad at work. I felt cold and hot, all at the same time.
Alternating between sweat and chill. Fear creeping into my heart with every nuance and
sound she made. My mother was a woman of iron and never let her fears show to us. I knew
the world must be falling apart as I drove the endless twenty minutes from work.
        I have come to think of this as “The Meeting.” When I arrived at the house at about 2 p.m. the whole family was there. I really started to get frantic when I saw that not only had she called me but the entire family! My heart raced, I even felt a little faint as the blood rushed to my head.
        When I got inside I noticed that my mother did not look well and my father looked
even worse. He looked yellow and had a clammy glow about his skin, his eyes were sunken
in. As I began to realize that he had looked that way for some time, I wondered why none of
us had noticed before now.
        My mother sat us all down, forever the “iron rod” that held the family, and sometimes the world, together. “Your father has cancer,” she calmly told us. “ It is in an advanced stage, it is probably terminal. The doctor says that depending on what kind of cancer it is he may have as little as two months to live.” My mother sank into her chair as she spoke the words, and they echoed in my head for what seemed an eternity...
        The endless reverberation is a feeling one never forgets. Sound filling every crevice in your head, so much that you even begin to forget Where the sound had come from to begin with.
        We all cried together and then we talked. We began to mend bad feelings that had taken 25 years to build. My dad and his temper, my leaving home at 15, the brutal spankings, my
willful behavior, all these things finally spoken and the beginnings of long needed
forgiveness setting in. It is amazing how insignificant those perceived slights can become when you know your time is very limited with the ones you love. All the years of pain and anger fade away, melting, being sloughed off like mud from the side of a mountain in a mud slide, gone.... Metamorphosed into a whole different species of pain and anger.
        I went home that day knowing my life could never be the same. The silence in the car was like that after a bad rainstorm, only, instead of creatures seeking the safety of shelter from the rain and cold, it was my heart and soul seeking refuge from the reality of death.
        The first week after “The Meeting” was a blur of details. I imagined that we could hold a ticker tape parade when we were done with all the red tape. Doctor visits, pharmacy trips,
seeking alternative cures, Social Security applications and appointments all had to be taken
care of. I felt like I was a tiny boat being tossed about in a gale force wind on a vast and
endless sea, at the mercy of the forces surrounding me, holding on for dear life, but glad for
the need to hold on to something, anything to keeping my mind off of the cold, destitute
depths below.
        In the middle of the second week the doctors came to us. “ The cancer has advanced so far that we are having a difficult time determining 100% the origin of it,” the doctors told us, “There is a small possibility that it is Testicular Cancer, “ with the doctor’s words you could feel the hope hanging in the air, dangling, teasing us, waiting to see if we would bite before it was snatched away for good. “If that is the case then chemotherapy has a really good chance of working and adding at least a couple years time. The other possibility is Colon Cancer, if that is what this is then nothing will change, we will know within two or three days.” We didn’t dare hope for such a miracle, but you could see that we all hoped anyway.
    By the end of that week dad was still deteriorating. His lab tests were still the same and the CAT scans all showed that the abdominal cavity was FULL of tumors. It was time to do the unthinkable, take dad home and try to provide a death that would offer love and comfort, not to mention dignity.
        I picked Dad up from the hospital and took him for the last ride he would be able to enjoy in a car. You could almost hear the stubborn pride turning to peaceful resignation as we rode home on a beautiful sunny day in June. To me it seemed he felt like he had lost a chess game with a twelve year old whiz kid, trying to be a good sport while discreetly licking his wounds.
        The beauty of it was realizing how much we take these simple things for granted. The sun shining off of distant windows and creating a twinkling mountain side is just so much more inspiring ,the kids riding their bikes in your path is so much less worrisome, the clean
streets, the smiling faces are just so much easier to appreciate when you know that it may
never be enjoyed with this person again. Imagine if you knew that next week would be the
last time you could have chocolate ice cream? Wouldn't you buy as much as you could and
savor every melting bite? That is what the ride home was like, but we were all at peace with
the things that were happening.
        The last two weeks of his life just flew by, I felt like Dorothy in the tornado, whirling,
swirling, flying out of control.
        I left Greg and the kids at home and moved in with Mom and Dad, to care for him while he died. There was never any question about how things would happen, we didn't even have to talk about it. As long as I kept busy everything was okay so I just took charge of everything and everybody else let me. Fortunately for all of us I am the only control fanatic in the family.
        My father died from liver failure, the cancer attacked the whole body but his liver was the easiest to defeat, I guess. With liver failure comes a state of coma. My dad spent the last nine days in a coma. He would come out of it to communicate to me, or to say good bye to those that he loved.
        Each day the Hospice Nurse came to clean him, and check his vital signs. Each day brought us closer and closer. Do you know how morbid it feels to be waiting for a person to die? Have you felt the guilt associated with wishing for a person to die? Even when it is
inevitable and will provide them comfort, it produces a wrenching in your gut, makes you
feel all twisted and sick inside, like you are a rubber band stretched around two sticks that
are being twisted around and around winding and winding, wanting it to stop but fearful of
what will happen when one of the sticks is released.
        The day finally came. In the wee hours of the morning he motioned to me, told me he was in pain. I was worried about giving him too much morphine so I called the nurse.
        “Honey, you can give him as much as he needs,” she kindly told me, “He's on borrowed time already and I don't understand why he has survived the last two days with his vital signs, we can barely read his pulse and the blood pressure is unreadable” the nurse explained, sounding amazed.
        “If he overdosed on the morphine all that would happen is his breathing would gradually slow till it stopped, which is preferable to living a couple hours more and being in pain, so if he is in any pain give him what he needs.” With that she hung up.
        I prepared the needle and began to swab dad's leg, when I touched the alcohol pad to his leg he jerked his leg away and grunted, trying to tell me that he no longer wanted the shot.
        “Dad,” I said, my voice escalating, “ You told me you were in pain and I called the nurse. She said if you need it you can have another shot.” By now I was almost shouting at him, "Unless you make it clear to me that you DO NOT want this shot I am going to give it to you. If you don't need it I will wait until it is time for your regular shot.” Again I began to swab his leg with the alcohol pad, and again he jerked his leg away and grunted. I did not give him the shot.
        Later I came to believe that, at that time, he was preparing to leave us. By now it was about 2:00 in the morning and I was really tired. Greg had come to spend the last couple days with me there, and I really needed his support.. I sure didn't want to sleep through giving dad his shot, but I was so tired I don't know what I would have done if Greg hadn't been there and volunteered to wake me at the right time.
        I slept on the couch next to Dad's hospital bed, meanwhile Greg fell asleep on the floor. At about 5:15 a.m. we woke so suddenly and forcefully that we were both on our feet before we knew we were awake. As if an invisible hand come out of nowhere and grabbing your very soul, shaking you awake. It was eerie and at the same time very peaceful, it felt right.
        We both felt like it was my dad making sure we were awake, because he knew we wanted to be there. I think it was his way of letting me know he was glad I was there, saying thank you, or I love you. The things he had such a hard time expressing in life. When we got our bearings straight we noticed Mom standing over Dad's bed, she motioned to us. Quietly we approached the bed, all three of us laid our hands on him, my mother held his right hand. I on his left, laid my hand on his chest and Greg took his left hand.
        “I will take care of them for you Joe,” Greg said tenderly. We told him it was okay to go, we were all together and would make sure everything was okay. This happened in such a short time that Dad had only taken three more breaths after we approached the bed. It was over.
        At first I felt I had been cheated. It just wasn't fair! Our family had never been whole to begin with, these last few weeks had begun to heal those things for me. Why would God fix things and then break them again? It was like putting a new engine in a really fine car with no wheels. What is the use? Is there really any purpose to putting together a puzzle that is
missing crucial pieces? I couldn't figure out why God would begin to heal me, and then take
away the agent of that healing.
        There was never really a relationship to mourn, we were not that close. My dad had never approved of anything that I had done in my life, I had always thought I would never be good enough, never measure up, and I had left home at fifteen and caused all kinds of trouble. After I left, when I would hug my dad he would go rigid, you could feel the heat as the tension oozed out. There were actually times that I could hear his teeth grind as he told me he loved me, BUT we did love each other. This may really sound strange but this really was a peaceful experience for me. I never realized that the death of a loved one could rank right next to the birth of a child in terms of spirituality. Being given the love I so much needed as a child, was liberating. Breaking the bonds forged by so much pain, I began to feel free.
Knowing that I WAS good enough and that my father loved me with all of his heart, and
always had, was redeeming. Like having a near miss with a semi, a second chance. Being
able to give what he never knew I had in my heart for him, and him accepting that, was
humbling. Teaching me that true service comes from love, not duty or obligation, and the
rewards of such service are innumerable.
        Knowing he loved me enough to share that time with me, gave to me something I never thought I would have. It was elevating. My emotions were riding a glass elevator on a building that disappeared into the clouds. Not knowing where I was headed, but knowing God IS there, that death is something to be revered. It is then that I began to feel like a whole person. No longer alone, incapable, or afraid of being me. I KNEW THEN THAT I WAS OKAY! I had never known that before.
        In dying my dad brought our family together as a real family for the first time ever. He made the ultimate sacrifice. The last two weeks with my father were the most fulfilling days in my life.