My last posting spoke of my daddy still being with us.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
He Is Still Here
It has been a full 17 days since my last post and Daddy is still with us. He was removed from all medication but morphine, yesterday. He is disoriented and doesn't recognize us for the most part. I have never experienced a death watch and it is quite unnerving.
Daddy finally went home at the very time I was typing that last entry. I actually had to save it as a draft as I ran out of the office headed home to be with my family in the afterglow of his departure from this life. It was quiet. It was peaceful. It was a gentle slipping from this earth into the next life. We couldn't have asked for better.
On May 17th, on my mama's birthday, she told Daddy that she would be OK; that we would take care of her. She said she knew he was tired to which he replied that he was so very tired. She told him it was OK to go. Then began the end. Hospice increased his anti-anxiety meds and pain meds. Tuesday, Daddy was aware but not nearly as responsive as he had been. His eyes didn't sparkle. For the first time in my life, his eyes did not sparkle. They looked glazed and dull and he had difficulty keeping them open. Some thought it was the morphine, but I felt the life was slipping out of him. Daddy lost ground quickly.
The next day was not a good day with Daddy talking out of his head at times. He was dying before our eyes, we just didn't realize it. He was losing recognition of the world as we know it and transforming for the new world he would soon inhabit. He spoke of dropping things that he was not holding, he wanted us to "pull him on through" but we were unaware of the place through which we were pulling him. He was slowly leaving us and making his way to the Creator. His last tangible auditory was, "Is Gracie here?" He began sinking deeper and deeper into sleep.
On Thursday morning at 8:30, Mama said she knew it would not be long. His breathing was very shallow and quick. At just a few minutes past 10 am on my sweet sister, Ellen's birthday, my daddy drew his last breath. Ellen was holding his right hand, Mama was holding his left and had laid her head on his chest when those two final cleansing breaths were inhaled and exhaled, separated by about 10 seconds. I can only imagine that as difficult as it was to be there, what a blessing, a gift, to be able to be holding him as he eased from this world into the next. Ellen said it was peaceful, quiet, calm, comfortable, and everything we had wanted it to be. It makes me smile even now to know that God took him home gently, after all. That had been our prayer for months.
We gathered at their home, one by one, each of us trickled in. Family and friends rallying around Mama to sustain her in her grief. Denise, the Hospice nurse asked me to help her hold Daddy's body so that she could clean him. It was good to be able to do one last thing for my Daddy. The best part is he was still so warm underneath and I was so glad to get to hold him one last time while the warmth was still encased in his body. It was a precious time for me.
When she was finished with her task, Denise left the room and it was just my daddy and me. I smoothed his hair and stroked his face. I held his gnarled fingers in my hands and gazed at them, in an attempt to memorize those hands that were once strong enough to provide a living for a family of eight. Those once-calloused hands that tilled the soil and grew healthy produce to feed and nuture us. Those now crooked and bent fingers that used to entertain us while he strummed his guitar, coaxing from its strings Wildwood Flower and listening to him play and sing Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes to my mama. I remembered how expertly he held the harmonica and produced sweet, country tunes. The very hands that could instill fear when they were holding a switch, or fill you with comfort when they held you in their embrace while Daddy wiped away the tears. I remember being a very small child, running and climbing into Daddy's lap. As he hugged me tight he would ask, "Who's after you or what do you want?" I haven't thought of that for years until now. Amazing how those seemingly,long-lost, thoughts flood back to haunt me after all this time.
I looked at the frail, shrunken, shell of this man I love and memories flooded my soul. Visions of him standing tall and proud, striding with a sure foot through the pastures and gardens of my mind. Dragging home turkeys, deer, fish, etc., not only to put food on our table, but because it was one of his passions. He loved the sportsmanship of hunting. Seeing him drive the tractor as he plowed the fields. He did it all for us. To take care of us. I envisioned him sitting in his chair reading the Bible or a western novel by Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour. All the little things that had been lost to him in the last several years due to failing health and dimished eyesight.
But he kept his smile, the twinkle in his eye, and his sense of humor until just before the end. His mind was good, as well. I was amazed how quickly I found myself wishing that I could hear one of his stories one last time. He loved to tell stories and I listened to them over and over again, hoping when this day arrived, I would be able to recall and pass along those tales to my offspring. In those last weeks, Daddy was as good as good could be, willing to comply with whatever we asked of him. That has caused me to wonder if that was one of God's rewards to Mama for her faithfulness. He let her have Daddy for a short time, the way he once was, before taking him home.
On Tuesday morning, while he was still cognizant, I told him that I appreciated all he had done for me. On Wednesday night, we were there to hear his last words. I almost waited, thinking that it was late and we could go the next night. How thankful I am that I did not put that off. How grateful I am that I took my children with me. How blessed I am to have gotten the opportunity to be there one last time for my family while Daddy was still with us, because on Thursday, he was gone.I hope I showed him how much he meant to me. I hope he knows.
It has been so devastating to watch him wither to nearly nothing physically, but in the process my daddy bloomed and blossomed in an emotional way. He told us all that he loved us, which some of us had never heard before. He told us how he appreciated us. He hugged us and held our hands and didn't want to let us go. We reciprocated all of that to him. It was again, a precious, precious time for me. In my reflections since his death I have discovered that although he spent his whole life 'showing' us how much we meant to him, it was only the during the last part when he could no longer show us, he was able to finally tell us. We were able to do both in the end and that is priceless.
One of the hardest parts of this journey after Daddy's demise was when the mortician took his body from home to the funeral home. As he was leaving with daddy's body, I realized with full impact that this was the last time I would see my daddy at home. All my life, he had been there and now he was not ever going to be again. That cold, hard, fact was not lost on mama. She wept with more intensity than I had seen so far, when they left with his body. Painful does not begin to cover the feeling of that moment.
It has been an awful journey, a sad journey, a joyous journey, an inspiring journey, a difficult journey, an enlightening journey...it has been a true adventure with twists and turns at every corner, but we made it through intact and I think my daddy is pleased with how it all turned out. Although I miss him and I hate to see my mama grieve, knowing this is the inevitable end for us all and in Daddy's case, there was no other way out but death, I feel it was something that will bond us together and make us a closer family. Knowing that, I know my Daddy is smiling.
