By: Dana Garrison
I’m a superhero with superhuman hearing.
I’m a ghost, omnipresent and unsettled.
I’m a shell of myself, already mentally and physically drained before I even sit up.
I’m the primary caregiver of my father, who is dying a slow, painful death from AML, an aggressive leukemia.
***
I can hear the muffled voices in the other room before I open my eyes. These days, my senses are heightened. I am so in-tune to the noises within the house, I am woken by only a gentle sigh that traveled through the wall, down the hall and through the closed bedroom door.
I drag myself from the bed and talk myself into taking a shower. My showers are quick these days. I can’t hear what’s happening in the house when I’m in the shower.
As soon as I enter the room, I realize today will be different. A good day. Lord, how we all need a good day for a change.
My father is sitting up in bed in the living room, 2 pillows behind his back and covered with a bedsheet of happy, purple flowers. I stare at the flowers. When the hospice bed was delivered 2 weeks ago to my father’s house, I panicked when I couldn’t find the spare sheets. My Aunt brought these purple-flowered sheets from her linen closet next door. In the future, every time I visit her, I’ll be scared to death she will forget and put them on the guest bed. Today, they look ridiculous on this literal death bed. I hate them.
My stepsiblings, who took the nightshift, look up and grin when I walk in the room. I know immediately why they are smiling, and my heart breaks for them. He’s awake! Maybe they were wrong! Maybe he’s going to be okay! He’s not going to die soon!
But I know what this is, what this means. My medical knowledge is a blessing and a curse. I’ve been both eagerly waiting for it and hoping it never comes: It’s the rally. He’s awake! He’s not going to be okay. It’s time to say goodbye while he’s lucid. He is going to die soon.
He smiles when he sees me, his only child, and reaches out his hand. The day is filled with pointless minutia sprinkled with hints at who he used to be before this disease took over his life—my life—only 6 weeks ago. He asks for a cold Bud Light for breakfast, a gin-n-tonic for lunch. He smacks his lips and lets out a happy sigh with that first cold sip of Bud. I stir the gin into the tonic with my finger, like he used to do. He watches golf and drag racing on the TV, reliving what seems like an already-past life and simultaneously being more alive than he has been in weeks. He is alert, commenting on the golfer’s swing and the race car tires. He makes jokes, he smiles. He’s always had a great smile. Maybe they were wrong! Maybe he’s going to be okay! Dying fathers don’t smile like that!
We call the neighbors and his brother and sister and tell them to come over. He’s awake! It’s time to say goodbye while he’s lucid. His priest comes to pray and give him his last rites and sacrament. Does he know he’s dying? He must know, but we don’t talk about it. As my aunt leaves, she pulls me aside and tells me it’s time to limit visitors. He wouldn’t want anyone to see him like this: frail, nude under the sheets, sucking his gin off a sponge. I know she’s right, and I’m grateful someone else made a decision for me today. I’m tired of making decisions.
When the visitors are gone, we gather around his bed: myself, my step siblings, and my stepmother. He looks around, smiles, and says, “I’m very lucky.” I squeeze his hand and smile back, then go prepare his next dose of morphine to stay ahead of his pain and restlessness. The vial is hidden in the refrigerator behind all the uneaten food neighbors have brought. I dig it out from behind a half-eaten lasagna and stale garlic bread. I draw the dose into the syringe like the hospice nurse taught me and then chart it in the little notebook that stays on the kitchen counter. I keep meticulous notes on all his doses. This notebook, with its clean, smooth pages and perfectly drawn chart is the only thing I feel I have control over in my life. When the hospice nurse compliments me on how organized and thorough my notebook is, I want to cry from the relief that I am doing something right.
I gently guide the syringe deep inside of his cheek and slowly inject the medicine so it can dribble down his throat without him having to swallow. He finally falls into a peaceful sleep, and I disappear into my room to take a nap because it is my turn to take the night shift.
***
He does not sleep through the night. I try everything: turning the lights down, playing soothing music, a sound machine…all the same things you do for a restless baby. I leave the lights and TV on at the suggestion of the hospice nurse, but nothing quiets his mind or the voices he’s hearing. He is restless, body and soul. He tries to sit up, he pulls at the oxygen in his nose, he grabs the rails of his bed and tries to pull himself over the edge, as if to escape this nightmare he is trapped in. I stand at the bedside, quiet, but inside I am screaming. Please, go to sleep—I’m so tired. Please, let go—I’m so tired. I didn’t mean that; please don’t go yet. Just…please. Please make this easy for both of our sakes.
I give up and lay on the couch, watching him interact with visitors I cannot see. He talks out loud to no one.
“Who else is in the house?”
Unintelligible singing
“You need to notify people”
“There’s a big crowd here for this”
“…leaving home….”
Mimics signing something
“forgiveness”
I wonder if his mother, my beloved Omi, is here with us in the dark visiting her precious boy. I wonder if she sees me laying on the couch, exhausted. I pray to her, like a Catholic prays to Mary, to intercede on my behalf. Soothe him, calm him. But don’t take him yet. I’m not ready.
***
He dies quietly on a Sunday morning while I sit at the kitchen table planning his funeral, debating with my stepmother and stepsister whether we should have guests sign a guestbook. His beloved dog, Vanna White-paws, is asleep under the dining room table and begins to howl in her sleep in that funny way dogs do, like they are dreaming. She’s never done that before, so my stepsister goes to check on her. On the way back, she passes my father and looks at him. She looks up at me, and we make eye contact. And I know: it is over.
***
I stand numb, telling myself to stay present even in this moment, watching as the caretaker rolls the stretcher towards the front door. My father is in a black bag, and they have left the bag unzipped from his chest up. An American flag lays across the rest of his body. I lean down and whisper in his ear my thanks and my goodbyes. You were a good Dad. Thank you. I love you.
It is the first time I have cried since it all began 6-weeks ago. Perhaps my superpowers are waning, and I am returning to human now. Will I be the same human? I don’t feel like I’ll ever be the same. They zip the bag and pull the flag up over the rest of his body. His best friend stands across the street in full salute as they carry him down the steps to the hearse. He is still standing there, in full salute, long after the car has disappeared down the street, and I have closed the door.
Author Byline:
Dana Garrison is a research coordinator in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She previously taught composition at UALR and Hendrix College, where she encouraged others to write bravely—advice that has finally caught up with her. She lives in Little Rock with her husband, teenage son and a very lazy Beagle.