The phone rang

The phone rang.

It had been nearly a year since the last call of this type.   Her mother's voice told her something was wrong.  Dad's in the hospital.  An exhausting ordeal that included frightening words like broken ribs, MRI found an aortic aneurism, and narcotics reactions,  and urgent need for surgery.  The ordeal stretched on and after surgery included staph infection, 3 months of iv antibiotics, and loss of independence.  Finally the end of the tunnel was visible and although weaker, her father seemed better, nearly himself again.  Her mother, it seemed, would likely never be the same again.  Mom had seen the signs and had begun to ready herself, while she and her sisters and brothers continue to deny it.

The phone rang.

Even before answering, she knew it was not good.  Words like hospital, pneumonia, lungs, pain came across the line.  This time she wanted to stay in denial.  Last time had been too hard.  She let another sibling take the lead.  Let them suffer in the halls of the hospital this time...the waiting...the meds...the hallucinations...the not knowing...the never knowing.  

The phone rang.  

The news was not good.  Come now. Come now.  She went.  The news was bad.  Stage 4.  Pain management or treatment?  Her father was a fighter.  He wanted to try.  Treatment.  Immediate.  At the airport they all went their separate ways.  Mother and father with big sister home for new doctors and poison to kill the disease, but hopefully save the patient.  Other siblings flew separately to their own cities and their own lives.  She sat and waited.  Her flight was last.  She had kissed and waved everyone else away.  She sat.  And sat.

Opening her laptop she began to write.  One way that she could always find peace was to write it out.  But instead of writing of current events, she began writing of future...and of past.  What poured from her keyboard was a eulogy.  

The phone rang.

She was in another airport.  Only a short time had passed and much of it had been a blur.  Work, life, thinking...thinking...thinking.  Today she was on her way to her hometown to see her father and take part in the poison treatment and to make plans...of what kind she did not know yet. She was in the middle of the country...halfway between a conference and home...just a stop along the way.  The phone jerked her closer to home.  "I'll meet you at the airport." the voice said "and take you to the hospital.  The ambulance is on its way."

She boarded the plane in a haze.  Thinking. Thinking.  And needed to stop thinking.  She reached into the pocket of the seatback and found a gift.  Someone had left a book.  She buried her mind in the story and read it cover to cover on the short flight between the middle of the country and home.  The lives in this book were easier to manage than the pain that might await her.

The phone rang.

I'm here.  Come to the curb. He's in the ER.  We all surround the bed.  Sometimes he makes sense.  Sometimes it's nonsense.  Mostly he tells us he doesn't want to be a bother.  He tells us to save our money.  He tells us he loves us.  The doctors have other things to say.  Infection.  No immune system.  Only a matter of time.  Can we let him go? Sign this release.

She picked up the phone.

She made the call this time...to family and friends. Come quick.  Come say goodbye.  He wants to say goodbye.  She holds his hand.  Something is changing.  Call everyone to come now.  Wake them.  Get them up from the waiting room.  A tear trickles down his cheek.  His breathing changes and with a sigh, he is gone.

The phone rang.

And although she winces, she answers.  Not bad news. Relief. Normalcy.  It would be so easy to think of the phone as an enemy.  But she chooses to remember other times the phone rang.  When someone called to say they loved her.  To say they were proud.  To hear the latest on job. House. Husband. Hell, just to hear her voice.  And in her dreams, when the phone rings, she forces these conversations to the front.  And hears her Dad's joyful chuckles and stupid jokes, and hears the easiness in her Mom's voice, and hears the general news of the day from friends and family.  Just this day, this one day, does the phone still haunt her.  Seven years to the day since the call to his side was the last.

Remembering My Dad

Today is my Dad's birthday. He would have been 82 years old. He passed away 5 years ago due to complications from the treatments he was receiving for lung cancer.

My Dad had been a smoker much of my life. He beat it for a while, but after several years began sneaking the cigarettes again. In February of 2003 he was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer - the most deadly and rapidly spreading kind. The doctors gave him the option of just treating his pain, or trying to beat the cancer. Either way, they were pretty sure he was terminal. We were all together at the hospital that day. It was probably the first time in 10 years we were all in the same room together - Mom, Dad, and all five kids. My Dad looked around at us, and didn't hesitate. He just said, "Let's do it! Let's try to beat this."

At first I thought he was in denial. But then I watched his actions. When packing up from their winter Florida home to return to Rochester NY for the treatments to begin, he insisted on walking to the rental office. When we asked him why, he said, "To Say Goodbye". There was something in the way he said it that told me it was to say a final goodbye. He knew he would never be back.

He made a list of things he wanted to do. Simple things. Places he wanted to go one more time. People he wanted to see. He was facing the end with grace and honor as he had his entire life.

At the airport we all flew off in our various directions home. One brother and one sister to southern California, another brother and sister to Rochester with my folks, me back to Suffern. Expecting the Doctor's prediction of 6 months we were all gearing up. Who could take a leave of absence from work first? How were we going to tag-team so Mom and Dad had our support?

But I sat in the airport after everyone else had left and wrote the eulogy I would find myself delivering much too soon.

A couple of weeks into Dad's treatment we were still debating how to make it all work, and I was on my way home from a conference I had attended in California. While waiting for a delayed connection, I received a call from my husband. He had driven to Rochester to meet me there. The plan was to spend the weekend in Rochester with my folks and try to make some plans for the coming months and then to drive home to Suffern. But everything changed with that call. My father had spiked a fever and was hallucinating and semi-responsive. They were calling an ambulance. They would send someone to get me at the airport when I landed.

That was the longest flight of my life. I remember thinking some angel had been watching me because someone had left the book The Love Letter in the seat pocket and it was the only thing that got me through that flight.

In the emergency room, my father apologized to me. He had been looking forward to the weekend, to seeing us, and he was sorry we were inconvenienced to be in the hospital. That was my Dad. He always wanted the best for all his kids.

To test him and keep him alert, we asked him, "What do you think Dad?" and he kept answering, "Save your Money" and making us all laugh through our tears.

The doctors took us to a private room to tell us they could do nothing for him but make him comfortable. His immune system was wiped out by the chemotherapy and the infection was ravaging his body. They didn't think he would last 24 hours. We called my sister and brother in California and told them the news. We called relatives and encouraged them to come and say good-bye. We tried to find moments of lucidity in my Dad's last hours to tell him we loved him and it was okay for him to go.

Then we waited.

We took turns sitting by his bedside. At one point my husband leaned over and kissed my Dad's forehead and told him, "You've always been my hero." In the wee hours of the morning, while others were sleeping in the waiting room, I was there holding his hand while my husband stood nearby. Then something changed.

None of the monitors registered a difference, but there was something new in his aspect. I told my husband to go down the hall and wake everyone. I asked the nurse to come into the room. As I watched, I still couldn't pinpoint it, but something was happening. Quietly, I said, "Dad?" and watched as a single tear streamed down his cheek. I squeezed his hand and he was gone.

One week later I delivered a eulogy at my father's memorial service. There were bagpipes playing Amazing Grace (he would have loved that) and despite an extreme ice storm that had surprised upstate NY that week, over 100 people came to pay their respects.

Because my Dad? he touched people. He lived a simple life. But in its simplicity was its power.

Happy Birthday Pop. I miss you every day.

The Original "Scatter"

As the Vacation Readiness Momentum continues, I found myself trying to keep track of all the little things at work and home that needed to be remembered. After AmyBow commented on my posting that I was much more together than I gave myself credit for, I tried to re-evaluate. Truth is...I'm just really good at appearing together. Maybe that is just as important?

My father used to be called "Scatter" at work. My mother and I learned this when some of his work colleagues got together for an event. Afterward we asked him, "Why Scatter?"..."Well," he said importantly, "It's because I get annoyed with the guys just standing around shooting the breeze at work. When I see a gang of them wasting time I come up and say - Hey you guys - Scatter!"

Years later, one of his work colleagues told us it was actually because he was a bit of an infamous scatterbrain.

I knew my Dad pretty well, and I always thought he was pretty together...so I tended to think his first story was the right one...but then again, maybe I've inherited my ability to just SEEM together from him. Miss you Dad.