On death
I’ve waited for these moments since I was 15. Nine long years of hospitals and life flight, chemo and a heart attack, two heart stints, medications, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, normal conversations turned uncomfortable with ‘your father is in the hospital’ inserted unapologetically halfway through.
For nine years, I’ve waited for the end. It always loomed over us, the darkest cloud, the bleakest promise. It was the thing that made me wonder why my parents poured in so much money — why prolong the life of someone so unhappy, so resigned, so unwilling to fight?
But the surgeries were completed. The next one, a pacemaker, is slated for March. The treatments were administered. The drinking was halted for weeks at a time, though it always returned. Now, the cigarettes have stopped.
It’s different this time. This overnight stay froze us to our cores. I’ve been paralyzed. A panic attack. High blood pressure. New meds. This is different.
Another heart attack will kill him.
45 years of pack-a-day and what good is it to stop now? This is a stopwatch and we don’t know how much time is left. Regardless, we’re speeding towards the finish, time flashing past and I’m not ready, he’s not ready.
What do you say to your drunk, crying father? The one you’ve tried to take care of your whole life? The one you once admired more than anyone? The one who taught you to pray, who helped you plant a garden each year and helped you walk the dog when you were too small to hold the leash and let you pluck peonies for the dinner table?
And the truth? The truth is that he hasn’t been a father since I was a little girl. I haven’t looked him in the eyes in years, haven’t been much of a daughter. It is crushing to try to love someone who is slowly, intentionally, destroying himself. The guilt of that will weigh for the rest of my life. My love is conditional.
Is death more bearable when it creeps in unexpectedly? Or is this, sickening and terrifying as it is, better? I can prepare — although what to prepare, I don’t know. I can go over the facts, screen the impending feelings, for days and weeks and months, but when that moment comes, it won’t be any easier.
I’m waiting.
