It was 11:45 pm when the phone rang. The message left on the home answering machine was a familiar voice, yet not a voice I often heard. It was my dad. His voice was low and wheezy. He was calling to tell me he had been to the doctor and received the diagnosis as to why he was not feeling well.
It was stage 4 lung cancer. The doctor advised him he had less than 6 months to live.
My dad and I were not close – at all! My childhood has a lot of painful memories. As a young girl, I desperately wanted to be seen and accepted by my dad, yet he was too busy living out his selfish desires to see me. It shattered me and without realizing it, I grew up filling that void with food, men, fighting and bitterness deeply rooted in my heart. Often times, dad used his anger to get what he wanted. Afterwards, shame came and he manipulated my mom to smooth things over. As a women, I vowed that no man would ever treat me that way. Rather than turn away from his behavior, I took it on. It would take years to realize this and still, I am working to change this damaging pattern in my life.
Dad was an only child. My sister could not handle taking on such huge decision making and my dad’s father had a stroke many years before in which my grandma took care of him. There was no question about it, I was going to have to care for my father during his last days.
Dad was a man of very little words. He used only a few phrases when he would see me during the Holidays. The one that stands out the most is when he would ask me a question, my reply would be “I don’t know” to which he would reply, “Well, what do you know?” I knew my dad was proud of the woman I had become and I grew to understand he simply didn’t know how to have a relationship with me. It didn’t heal my broken heart, it just made it manageable.
During the last months of his life he remained in the hospital. I would visit 5-6 times a week. During my visits, dad and I had an unspoken language. As I would enter the room to find him asleep, I would quietly slip into my favorite chair and crochet or read for a few hours. When dad would wake up, he looked over to the chair I was in, smile and go back to sleep. From the look on his face, my presence provided comfort and that created joy in my heart.
The cancer was fast spreading and tumors grew all over his back. When he was awake, I would give him back rubs in hopes to provide a little comfort. When he was moved from the hospital to the cancer center, we rode in silence in the ambulance. Dad was a stubborn old man and refused to let go of his apartment, so we would sit quietly together while I wrote his checks to pay his bills. I remember trying to mentally prepare myself for the day when he would lose his hair. It’s not a huge deal really, I just didn’t want to come in one day and have the look of shock on my face. To make the situation easy for us both, I would sit on his bed and run my fingers through his hair. Little by little it would come out in my hands and I would sprinkle it on his chest. Dad was a fuzzy man so we giggled trying to make light of what we both knew was coming. Yet for my dad, the cancer would move at a rapid rate and he would leave this world with his hair. The hospital advised that it was time to move him to a nursing home to finish his last days. As I walked around his new room explaining where he was, I turned on the bathroom light. Dad sat straight up in the bed and said “I am going home.” The doctors advised me to let him dream of going home to his apartment as long as he wanted and to not correct him. I smiled as my heart broke inside for him and I continued organizing his new room. When leaving for the night, I assured him I would see him in the morning.
I think planning for life should be done in pencil as we really never know what tomorrow holds. I received a call after midnight from a panicked nurse advising me that my dad had fallen out of bed. We needed to make a decision to resuscitate or not. I had previously filled this paperwork out but it got misplaced and they needed me to decide then. I was panicked and scared and I said yes, resuscitate. I made it to the nursing home in time to ride in the ambulance with dad to the hospital. The EMS team worked on my dad as we drove. I watched in horror and asked them to please stop as I knew my dad was gone. They did not stop working on him until we arrived at the hospital.
Dad was right, he did go home that night. To his Heavenly home.
I thought about having a heart to heart with him and sharing my pain, disappointment and seeking answers, but during our short time together, I realized my dad is only a man. He did the best he could with what he had.
It was the unspoken moments that forgiveness was found.
2HIMIGO 