Dying as he lived
It's been over 3 months and I still don't know what to say when someone asks what's up with me. It always feels so melodramatic to tell people my father died, but it is the biggest thing that happened to me this year.
My dad was a hypochondriac who didn't trust doctors, so he would complain all the time about being dizzy or having trouble breathing, but wouldn't see (or trust) a medical professional. He got a pacemaker in 2015, in a pretty dramatic weekend that upon re-reading, is not all that different from his Q1. I apparently never wrote about our last Thanksgiving, when he got angry at my son's misbehavior and I thought I was going to have to physically intervene, but he was that vital in November. We had lunch in December, right before we left for France, but while he was quiet, you could talk to him. Then when we got back, you couldn't talk to him: he mostly napped and demured when you tried to have a conversation.
My mom took him to a pulmonologist last year, to see if there was a reason he was having trouble breathing. The pulmonologist said there was nothing wrong with his lungs, but he might have an aortic stenosis. My dad went to the emergency room twice, once in my hometown and once at NYU, with consequent hospital stays that were marathons for my mom, trying to keep him in the hospital until the doctors said he could go home. He refused an angiogram and then agreed and then when he was on the table, withdrew his consent, saying he didn't want to be "experimented on". It sucks to be confused and paranoid. Then they finally kept him compliant long enough to do an angiogram and it turned out he had multiple issues with his heart. We were told it would take open heart surgery to fix all this, which they wouldn't do for a man in his eighties, no matter how healthy he otherwise was. The ensuing discussion with my siblings wasn't quite as heated as the one over my grandmother, but my siblings and I were all frantically trying to find some way of getting my dad the treatment to keep his heart going.
My mom took my dad to New Haven for an appointment with yet another cardiologist. I'd wondered why they always take your blood pressure in a doctor's visit, even when you have a cold or whatever, but my father's was so low, the cardiologist personally pushed him in a wheelchair to the hospital. The plan was I would drop my son off with my mother after they got back from the doctor's and then go to DC for the start of a vacation with Jon, but instead, I went to Connecticut to visit my father in the hospital. I ended up taking the toddler to DC, which wasn't great because the two things my stepson wanted to do in DC were the Holocaust Museum and a Supreme court argument. The new plan was I would take my son somewhere toddler appropriate for a day while Jon and his son did those things, then we'd do toddler appropriate museums the following day. While my son and I were finishing up at the National Portrait Gallery, I got a call from my siblings telling me to come back to New Haven, and maybe I should take the Acela.
I took the Acela, and got there just in time for dinner. The next day, the whole family gathered at my dad's bed and he told us that love is everything and that we need to take care of each other. He may have been looking specifically at me when he repeated his frequent exhortation, take no risks. Every night, one of us would stay with my father so he would have constant family, so I took that night. It was tough. Hospitals are never easy places to sleep and my dad spent the whole night trying to tell me he had to go home because it was going to rain and he needed to close things up. He wouldn't take his meds, even crushed in pudding, and I used every wile I use on his grandson. My father told me I'm very very smart, but still wouldn't take his meds.
We made it very clear to the doctors that our number one goal was to take my father home, so when it became clear to them they couldn't fix him, they figured out how to make it happen. Friday afternoon, they sent him in an ambulance, where hospice had already delivered a bed. For the next week, my parents' room was a sick room, with a blur of nurses and aides. The first nurse was a man named Lawrence, whose skill and strong faith made me suspect he was a "closer". My dad survived that night and my relatives started pouring in. My aunt and uncle drove from Massachusetts for the day to see my dad; my uncle and his wife flew in from South Korea during the Olympics. My mother's father visited, right up until his own surgery for colon cancer. My dad had ice cream 3 times on Saturday, courtesy of my other aunt. My sister cooked dinner and my dad asked to come out to the dining table to join us. We'd spoonfed him every bite in the hospital, but when the chocolate cake came out on Saturday night, he grabbed the spoon and chased every crumb from his plate. Sunday he had a little ice cream and no other food. We took him outside, to the grounds that were his pride and joy, but there was little reaction.
I went back to NYC, to go to work, because we didn't know how long he would last. My brother claims my dad was upset that we were all hanging around him, not working, but of course my dad couldn't communicate all that. I was supposed to self-care on Wednesday night, maybe see my son, but got another "come now" from my sister. When I got there, my dad was no different, and I had a bit of a temper tantrum.
I had a presentation to give on Friday, which I did from my parents' house. An hour later, we lost power in a winter storm. My parents' house is old and stone and remote and they lose power all the time, so we knew how to handle this (although my father would never get a backup generator). Doing it with a dying man was awful and dying in the cold is a death i'd wish on no one. A tree fell and blocked my parents' dead end street just above their house, taking out their power. An insane guy delivered food to us, but the nurse left at the end of his 12 hour shift. We spent the night changing my dad's oxygen and huddling in their room for warmth. My jobs were tearful calls to the power company and keeping my mom's phone charged. (My brother burned out 3 devices before midnight, while I still had a Kindle to read and working phones the next day.)
The next day, my brother was able to get to his house, despite downed trees. I was prepared to spend another night taking care of my dad in the freezing house, but eventually we got an ambulance that would drive most of the way to the house. They transferred my dad to an SUV to get him through a field to the ambulance, but the logistics were poor and my sister believes to this day it hastened his passing. There were no hospice facilities nearby, so they took my dad to my brother's house, which did have power. I don't remember what we did for dinner, but I was exhausted and went to bed.
When I woke up the next morning, I wondered if I'd leave on my business trip the next day. I went to the attic where my dad was, and was told he had a bad night. My mother looked awful and after a little while, I was told to get my siblings. We were holding his hand, clustered around him. Lawrence the nurse was with us again and came over to take my dad's pulse. He looked at me and said, "You know he's gone." I'd been awake for 1.5 hours.
I called Jon and asked him to come, bringing the clothes I'd laid out. A friend of the family came over with trays of freshly cooked Chinese food. My stepmother-in-law called and I was talking to her when I was told they were taking my dad away. I stayed with him as they put him in the bag. He still looked good, perhaps paler than usual.
The funeral was the next day. My father specifically told us not to have an obituary, but there was still a huge crowd, partly because my mother's family is enormous. I cried when they gave my mother the flag that had been draped on my dad's coffin. My sister's eulogy was gorgeous. The assistant rabbi gave a terrible speech that started with "I didn't know [the deceased] but I've heard..." and forgot to say kaddish.
I never learned about mourning customs in day school and the rabbi, during his final visit to my father didn't do a great job of educating us. On the other hand, while I believe most of Jewish custom is meant to be irritating, our mourning rituals are THE BEST. We don't send flowers, we send food, which is so useful. My brothers' colleagues and friends kept us (and our visitors) fed all week with deli sandwiches, dumplings, cookies, and fruit. We reconnected with people we hadn't seen in forever. A minyan descended on my brother's house every night, which was so kind, even if it was bizarre to see a minyan in a non-Jewish household. We didn't know what was happening, so I have this image in my head of my Catholic cousin holding a siddur and looking confused as heck as everything is said in Hebrew. I'm really peeved that I got the stinkeye from the Orthodox men for standing in front of the room, even though I read Hebrew and pray better than any of my family.
There was another winter storm, that cut short the visitors. I stayed with my mom at my brother's house through that. We went to her house when they got the power back a few days later and cleared out her fridge and did paperwork. I guess I went home at some point, but I don't remember much from then.
I've gone to synagogue almost every Saturday, with my son, to say kaddish. I went with my mother once to her synagogue, and the rabbi looked very approving as I said kaddish, but my mother got so cranky, I haven't gone with her since. Going to synagogue has been hard, because each time I leave, I want to call my dad and tell him I went, tease him for not going, and tell him some tidbit, like how they sang Adon Olam to the tune of Dayenu. I can't. It's getting a little better, especially since I realized that I need a Jewish friend. It's now a goal for the year. I'm re-engaging with Judaism, but that's a story for another post.
This post was made on Dreamwidth & crossposted to LJ.
The dreamwidth post is here: https://katestine.dreamwidth.org/1379734.html and has
comments.
My dad was a hypochondriac who didn't trust doctors, so he would complain all the time about being dizzy or having trouble breathing, but wouldn't see (or trust) a medical professional. He got a pacemaker in 2015, in a pretty dramatic weekend that upon re-reading, is not all that different from his Q1. I apparently never wrote about our last Thanksgiving, when he got angry at my son's misbehavior and I thought I was going to have to physically intervene, but he was that vital in November. We had lunch in December, right before we left for France, but while he was quiet, you could talk to him. Then when we got back, you couldn't talk to him: he mostly napped and demured when you tried to have a conversation.
My mom took him to a pulmonologist last year, to see if there was a reason he was having trouble breathing. The pulmonologist said there was nothing wrong with his lungs, but he might have an aortic stenosis. My dad went to the emergency room twice, once in my hometown and once at NYU, with consequent hospital stays that were marathons for my mom, trying to keep him in the hospital until the doctors said he could go home. He refused an angiogram and then agreed and then when he was on the table, withdrew his consent, saying he didn't want to be "experimented on". It sucks to be confused and paranoid. Then they finally kept him compliant long enough to do an angiogram and it turned out he had multiple issues with his heart. We were told it would take open heart surgery to fix all this, which they wouldn't do for a man in his eighties, no matter how healthy he otherwise was. The ensuing discussion with my siblings wasn't quite as heated as the one over my grandmother, but my siblings and I were all frantically trying to find some way of getting my dad the treatment to keep his heart going.
My mom took my dad to New Haven for an appointment with yet another cardiologist. I'd wondered why they always take your blood pressure in a doctor's visit, even when you have a cold or whatever, but my father's was so low, the cardiologist personally pushed him in a wheelchair to the hospital. The plan was I would drop my son off with my mother after they got back from the doctor's and then go to DC for the start of a vacation with Jon, but instead, I went to Connecticut to visit my father in the hospital. I ended up taking the toddler to DC, which wasn't great because the two things my stepson wanted to do in DC were the Holocaust Museum and a Supreme court argument. The new plan was I would take my son somewhere toddler appropriate for a day while Jon and his son did those things, then we'd do toddler appropriate museums the following day. While my son and I were finishing up at the National Portrait Gallery, I got a call from my siblings telling me to come back to New Haven, and maybe I should take the Acela.
I took the Acela, and got there just in time for dinner. The next day, the whole family gathered at my dad's bed and he told us that love is everything and that we need to take care of each other. He may have been looking specifically at me when he repeated his frequent exhortation, take no risks. Every night, one of us would stay with my father so he would have constant family, so I took that night. It was tough. Hospitals are never easy places to sleep and my dad spent the whole night trying to tell me he had to go home because it was going to rain and he needed to close things up. He wouldn't take his meds, even crushed in pudding, and I used every wile I use on his grandson. My father told me I'm very very smart, but still wouldn't take his meds.
We made it very clear to the doctors that our number one goal was to take my father home, so when it became clear to them they couldn't fix him, they figured out how to make it happen. Friday afternoon, they sent him in an ambulance, where hospice had already delivered a bed. For the next week, my parents' room was a sick room, with a blur of nurses and aides. The first nurse was a man named Lawrence, whose skill and strong faith made me suspect he was a "closer". My dad survived that night and my relatives started pouring in. My aunt and uncle drove from Massachusetts for the day to see my dad; my uncle and his wife flew in from South Korea during the Olympics. My mother's father visited, right up until his own surgery for colon cancer. My dad had ice cream 3 times on Saturday, courtesy of my other aunt. My sister cooked dinner and my dad asked to come out to the dining table to join us. We'd spoonfed him every bite in the hospital, but when the chocolate cake came out on Saturday night, he grabbed the spoon and chased every crumb from his plate. Sunday he had a little ice cream and no other food. We took him outside, to the grounds that were his pride and joy, but there was little reaction.
I went back to NYC, to go to work, because we didn't know how long he would last. My brother claims my dad was upset that we were all hanging around him, not working, but of course my dad couldn't communicate all that. I was supposed to self-care on Wednesday night, maybe see my son, but got another "come now" from my sister. When I got there, my dad was no different, and I had a bit of a temper tantrum.
I had a presentation to give on Friday, which I did from my parents' house. An hour later, we lost power in a winter storm. My parents' house is old and stone and remote and they lose power all the time, so we knew how to handle this (although my father would never get a backup generator). Doing it with a dying man was awful and dying in the cold is a death i'd wish on no one. A tree fell and blocked my parents' dead end street just above their house, taking out their power. An insane guy delivered food to us, but the nurse left at the end of his 12 hour shift. We spent the night changing my dad's oxygen and huddling in their room for warmth. My jobs were tearful calls to the power company and keeping my mom's phone charged. (My brother burned out 3 devices before midnight, while I still had a Kindle to read and working phones the next day.)
The next day, my brother was able to get to his house, despite downed trees. I was prepared to spend another night taking care of my dad in the freezing house, but eventually we got an ambulance that would drive most of the way to the house. They transferred my dad to an SUV to get him through a field to the ambulance, but the logistics were poor and my sister believes to this day it hastened his passing. There were no hospice facilities nearby, so they took my dad to my brother's house, which did have power. I don't remember what we did for dinner, but I was exhausted and went to bed.
When I woke up the next morning, I wondered if I'd leave on my business trip the next day. I went to the attic where my dad was, and was told he had a bad night. My mother looked awful and after a little while, I was told to get my siblings. We were holding his hand, clustered around him. Lawrence the nurse was with us again and came over to take my dad's pulse. He looked at me and said, "You know he's gone." I'd been awake for 1.5 hours.
I called Jon and asked him to come, bringing the clothes I'd laid out. A friend of the family came over with trays of freshly cooked Chinese food. My stepmother-in-law called and I was talking to her when I was told they were taking my dad away. I stayed with him as they put him in the bag. He still looked good, perhaps paler than usual.
The funeral was the next day. My father specifically told us not to have an obituary, but there was still a huge crowd, partly because my mother's family is enormous. I cried when they gave my mother the flag that had been draped on my dad's coffin. My sister's eulogy was gorgeous. The assistant rabbi gave a terrible speech that started with "I didn't know [the deceased] but I've heard..." and forgot to say kaddish.
I never learned about mourning customs in day school and the rabbi, during his final visit to my father didn't do a great job of educating us. On the other hand, while I believe most of Jewish custom is meant to be irritating, our mourning rituals are THE BEST. We don't send flowers, we send food, which is so useful. My brothers' colleagues and friends kept us (and our visitors) fed all week with deli sandwiches, dumplings, cookies, and fruit. We reconnected with people we hadn't seen in forever. A minyan descended on my brother's house every night, which was so kind, even if it was bizarre to see a minyan in a non-Jewish household. We didn't know what was happening, so I have this image in my head of my Catholic cousin holding a siddur and looking confused as heck as everything is said in Hebrew. I'm really peeved that I got the stinkeye from the Orthodox men for standing in front of the room, even though I read Hebrew and pray better than any of my family.
There was another winter storm, that cut short the visitors. I stayed with my mom at my brother's house through that. We went to her house when they got the power back a few days later and cleared out her fridge and did paperwork. I guess I went home at some point, but I don't remember much from then.
I've gone to synagogue almost every Saturday, with my son, to say kaddish. I went with my mother once to her synagogue, and the rabbi looked very approving as I said kaddish, but my mother got so cranky, I haven't gone with her since. Going to synagogue has been hard, because each time I leave, I want to call my dad and tell him I went, tease him for not going, and tell him some tidbit, like how they sang Adon Olam to the tune of Dayenu. I can't. It's getting a little better, especially since I realized that I need a Jewish friend. It's now a goal for the year. I'm re-engaging with Judaism, but that's a story for another post.
This post was made on Dreamwidth & crossposted to LJ.
The dreamwidth post is here: https://katestine.dreamwidth.org/1379734.html and has
comments.