My Dad, Part II

As before, I am going to share some personal things that involve medical issues I won’t get into, but concern a parent. So if that is a tough thing for you, this is a place to bail. My point in sharing this is because writing it helps me and it is my own process for what I am feeling, but also to normalize the feelings around something like this. There is grief involved, sort of a pre-grieving process, and that is something that can both soften the blow but also make it feel like a wound that simply does not heal fully, and remains raw and somewhere between uncomfortable and painful.

My dad is dying. It could be as soon as today that he leaves, surely before the week is out. He has barely eaten for a month and has withered before us. It has been hard to watch, and encouraging him increasingly felt like telling him to struggle against his wishes. It is really hard when you think someone is going to have more time with you, to suddenly realize that is not in fact the case. After his initial stint in the hospital, it appeared he might be stable for some additional time (whether measured in months or years), but things went sideways again pretty quickly. While he was stabilized again from a medical standpoint, it was clear he was not going to get better, no matter how much we hoped he would. Out of my family, I may be the one with the most experience dealing with grief and dying because of my work and my own weird personal intrigue and interest around death from an early age. So, when it seemed like my dad did not want to fight anymore, I went to talk to him. My mom sort of laid the groundwork and asked if he wanted to keep fighting, to which he said “no,” and then she asked if I could talk to him, which he of course agreed to. In the span of an hour in the hospital, everything abruptly changed. We went from life-saving and life-preserving measures to a new plan of ensuring he was comfortable. I went from back-to-school shopping to having this conversation to having dinner, and that, so far, has not been the most surreal aspect of all of this.

Within 24 hours of us hearing and honoring his wishes, my dad has largely entered a peaceful rest and is no longer communicating with us. In mere days, we went from joking about a new shirt I got, me surprising him with a gift that got a really good laugh out of him, to him telling us he was ready to go and that he wanted to die. My life persists, I still have bills to pay, work to do, kids to be present with, my own life to live, and sometimes it feels selfish that I am still trying to be present everywhere else in my life. It also feels weird to be suddenly almost rooting for death for someone you love so dearly, because it is their wish, and you do not want to prolong that suffering. I keep jotting little notes as I have realizations along the way, from me wondering how many other people stopped at a traffic light with me are hurting like this, and how many of them have hurt like this. Like that meme at the party with the guy in the corner, I think to myself, “they don’t even know I am awash in grief in this instant,” but that grief ebbs and flows. One minute, tears are threatening to spill down my face and the next I am eating dinner, reading a book, or having a conversation and the grief is temporarily put to the side; not forgotten but rather in essence me holding my finger up to it the way you would if someone tries to talk to you while you are listening intently to a phone call.

I know you can’t outrun grief, and I am not trying to, but it also feels complicated because he is not gone yet, and now it is this weird, sad, sort of fucked up game of knowing he is still alive and rooting for him to get his wish. I don’t know what to do or how to move forward yet, because it is still technically something that WILL happen, not something that has happened. I know that my mom finds some of the books she has been reading a little too heavy to read right now. Meanwhile, I find a sense of comfort in the sadness and grief in many of the books I am reading. It normalizes and humanizes the sort of numbness I feel, while also highlighting that humans still live, no matter how terrible and tragic their grief is, that I am bearing witness to.

My dad has always been there, just a phone call away, and now that will no longer be the case. I won’t be able to watch the way my kids interact with him, I won’t be able to share stories with him, or introduce him to shows that I think he will like. College football season is upon us, and I will not get to cheer or commiserate with him. I guess that is the hardest part for me in all of this, the little moments, things that I could always count on and depend on, are suddenly off the table. It was not some big trip; it was not him financing my lifestyle, or anything like that. It was the constancy of his presence in my life. Knowing he was there for me, my kids, and all of the people he called family, regardless of whether they were actually related to us. I will miss the way he laughed, the way he could show love and be present without saying anything, and I know that I will think of him probably every day for the rest of my life. Whenever I unironically say that something is “neat” or call my kids “kiddo”, I will know that it is him still speaking through me (as he has done since I became a parent). I also know that the Muppets, a good dad joke, or a hamburger will always bring me right to him, even though he won’t physically still be here.

I can’t outrun the grief, and I won’t try to. But I also will try to use him as a guide for being a light in this world, even at my most introverted.