seven days
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Somedays it feels like an ancient story, read long ago in some history book. Other days it feels like it happened a moment ago. Fresh, raw, dreadful. These days, these seven days, are a week of torment. Each moment taking me back.. matching this years calendar's days to then. Where was i? Probably in that huge chair, watching him sleep. Trying not to count his breaths.. not to wonder: how many more until the inevitable?
Don't let it be on his birthday. I did the math. A week to ten days they said. He'll sleep a lot. Those toxins that the kidneys (when they work) remove, would build up. Spurning the machine that did it for him would bring only one result.The one he was ready for. The one no one else could fathom. His birthday would be seven days from his last dialysis.
I sat in that chair, watching him sleep most of the afternoon. I probably napped myself, i usually did. He slept deeply, but he always did. He's sometimes struggle with his breathing.. i'd check his oxygen tube.. making sure he hadn't pulled it away while he'd slept. I'd tell myself it was no worse then before, and i wasn't wrong. I went downstairs, around the back of the hospital. I'd find the secluded spot behind a long dumpster in the quiet alley and smoke. My release. A round jar with aromatic marijuana that provided a modicum of relief. Made it possible for me to watch him die without going mad. Allowed me to go back and talk to my waking Son, to enjoy the moment, to laugh at his jokes. To smile when his room filled with his friends. His dear dear friends.
He had a party that night. I left before he cut the German Chocolate birthday cake. But the next morning there was a piece set aside in the Hospice fridge for me. Two more sat next to it, reserved for his favorite nurses. Even at the end he like to share. He had bags of candy. Starburst. Gummi Worms. The coup de grace: Supersour nuclear warheads. Almost anyone who entered the room got candy. He especially liked to give the warheads to the older nurses, delighting at dishing back a little discomfort to those angelic women who had to put him through so much.
I settled into my new routine. Get up.. push myself to go out the door. Through the hospital door, to the elevator. Top floor take a left then another... walk past rooms of crying family.. some new some recognized, some cloaked in privacy, some open and social. Last room on the right, a corner room with windows that have no view. Most days now he doesn't stir until I've been there for awhile. Sleeping, wheezing, waking, looking over to make sure he wasn't alone. "don't let me be forgotten".
I wont forget. His laugh. His kindness. The way i felt when he said 'i love you dad.' The look on his face when i brought him one of his cats. The impish grin he'd shoot me when he'd offer one of the cute young nurses a starburst. The way he held court from his hospital bed, a room full of friends with nothing in common but him.
It wasn't on his birthday, or the day after. Day ten came and passed, his breathing when he slept still ragged... still slowing. But every afternoon he'd wake. His mind never degenerated like the rest of his tired organs. His wit now was often mean spirited, as the poison in his body overwhelmed him. Two nurses left his room in tears. Both came back (on his request) to accept his heartfelt appology and retribution in candy form. A third spent day eleven relieving his regular nurse on her day off. She had long straight brown hair, just like his mother. He took an immediate dislike to her. He spent the day funneling the poison inside at her through his tongue, but unlike his mother she was a woman of great character and by the time her shift was over he was offering her a Starburst, and not objecting when she helped herself to the most prized strawberry, in it's pink wrapper.
Day twelve .. like nails across an endless chalkboard it seemed. I remember telling him goodnight before i left.. No words from him.. none needed. His hand.. pale and swollen holding mine against his cheek feircely . A last look across the room as slip out the door.
It took thirteen days for his body to give up the fight.
Now i lay awake in my bed.I can't forget. My eyes go to the top of my door frame. A single pink starburst sits on the ledge, his last gift to me. It's stale now, but the pain is fresh. raw. dreadful.