Friday with Daddy
daddy never went through the front door of our house.
always through the back, by the carport and into the utility room where he might scale a fish (much to my mother's chagrin) where the dog sat and scratched at the door during our supper, where he stitched up a rabbit my sister found injured in the yard. where one morning when he was in his 40s he collapsed into my mother, sobbing because his friend had died at home while reading the paper in his wing chair and daddy had to pronounce him dead.
the front door was reserved for prom dates and the rare trick-or-treater, for strangers stopping by.
but when daddy came home on last friday — april 19 — they brought him through the front door.
he came home the same way he left town way back in february, in a giant transport filled with fancy machines, a blue tulip-like flower emblazoned on the side.
we had made the decision to bring him home two days before, my family and his hospital team crowded around his bed. he'd been asking to go home for more than a month, to leave behind the machines and tubes and take his rest in his bed at home. pat, my father's pa, carefully listed off the options for a man who could no longer breathe completely on his own. a long-term care hospital. palliative care or Hospice.
when i heard the word 'home' i looked to my mother, praying she would choose that option. in a wheelchair herself, she would be going home herself the next day, to 24-hour caregivers my sister would meet later in the day. my brother leaned into mama, asking quietly: what do you want to do?
'home,' she said. 'let's take him home.'
a week ago now, the transport team pulled up in front of our house drew him out into the crisp spring air. and i was waiting.
'you're home daddy!' i shouted, and he looked around. home, his wish finally granted. i stood there— my family waiting just inside the front door — watching him look around at the sky. they wheeled him into our front hall where the Christmas tree stood in december,
down the hall he had walked so many times in the middle of the night in his pajamas toward the back door and a patient waiting. down the hall, toward the linen closet, that when i was five i was convinced held a witch. they wheeled him to his room, to a bed he had last slept in on february 5, the room he had shared with my mother for 50 years.
it felt like a long ride to me, down our hall. across the creaky floorboard that gave my brother's Christmas morning crawl away. past my childhood room. a mile it seemed, as they shifted the gurney to make room for this 6-foot-two man, squeezing him through the door into a room softened by carpet and soothing blue.
daddy brought with him a host of people. the Hospice doctor and two nurses. a respiratory therapist, Pat, who had been caring for him all these weeks. a priest who's liberal views challenged daddy's conservative ones, but in his years as their
minister, the two had become good friends.
the team to settled him, and my mother's caregivers helped her into place beside him. it was mid-afternoon.
by the time we gathered next to him, daddy wore his familiar pajamas, sat propped against his favorite pillow, talked to us. i took hold of his hand, and he said something i couldn't grasp... what, daddy?
he looked straight at me and said: your hands are COLD! he wanted chocolate milk, but we had only vanilla ice cream. i spooned it carefully into his mouth, he swallowed, not seeming to care that we could not grant his original wish.
the day before he came home, daddy talked to all of his grandchildren on the phone. somehow, after all these weeks of quiet, he had much to say. it was a miracle, really. i talked to him, too, as did my mother and sister, all of us overjoyed at hearing his voice again.
last thursday was her first day home as well, after her fall. we had fixed her crab cakes — the best meal she had ever eaten! — and watched as she pulled herself up on her bed, straighten out that broken leg, beginning the first steps toward her recovery.
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when we gathered everybody around in the room, daddy said: we didn't plan for all these people.' for daddy, it has always been about the plan. each day i visited him in the hospital, he would ask: plan. toward the end, when we had no idea, i'd shrug my shoulders — one of his exercises — and say, 'who knows? that's the plan.' which seemed to satisfy him.
this time we had one. we all joined the priest for last rites from the good ol'
Book of Common Prayer
. and then daddy thanked everyone for coming. thanked them, which is so what my father would do. later on, he FaceTimed with my daughter and my niece. strange, that, this 84-year-old dying man saying when asked by his granddaughters how he felt, he said:'pretty good.'
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i will tell you that it's something, when your siblings gather round your dying father.
my brother, a physician, is good with those who are critically ill. i have watched him with my father all these weeks. he leans in, speaks softly, but loud enough to jostle daddy awake when need be. this day was no different. i can't imagine how hard it is to be doctor, lawyer, indian chief, son, for he has been all these things since february, and again on this afternoon, our last friday with daddy.
my sister brought the dog in, picked her up and put her on the bed with daddy, knowing just how long he had waited to touch her head.
we spent the afternoon and evening gathered around my parents, telling stories and praying and singing.
After supper, i sat with him and read him the story of his life.
we kissed him goodnight, leaving he and my mother alone in the room.
she lay by his side the whole night, and ruby did for most of it.
and then, a call, footsteps in the hall, my sister running toward the room where i had tried to sleep a little.
it was over.
we surrounded his body, talking and crying, naming all the dogs he was now getting to see. our grandparents. his friends. so many who have made this journey before him.
and then we left the room, all of us, to wait for the next step.
in the wee hours, as we sat up and waited for the Hospice nurse and the funeral director to arrive in the pouring rain, we listened as mama told stories about him and their life together, their early years. Despite all the uncertainty and the trauma we've experienced these many weeks, what a treasure my father's last hours were to all of us.
dawn came, and we called all the children, made arrangements for them to join us in this new life without their Pop B. not one of us has wanted to go there, but at least we will travel together, his legacy to us that he was the magnet that drew us together, keeps drawing, even in his absence.
in the days since daddy died, we have heard a hundred stories from his patients and friends, many reflecting his wry humor, others his humble, caring nature.
'he was quiet, but he was
powerful,' the man, a patient, who has kept up our lawn when daddy no longer could told me yesterday. yes he was.
my father was a great man, so many have said to us in the past week. but aren't all our father's that?
"so with the sleight of his magician's hand, he will end the show,'
i wrote back in 1997.
and i don't know who will miss him more — his patients, or the doctor himself..." those very words caught in my throat as i read them to him one last time just a few hours before he died. words appropriate for retirement so many years ago, and, it turns out, for his last friday with us.
i can't imagine now how much i'll miss him. it still isn't real to me yet. but i am not alone, because i have a full family and a whole town gathered around me, and we are all holding each other up.
bye daddy. guess it was finally your time to hit the road. be careful. and have a safe and happy trip. sbr
ps: thank you to all who have called and visited, who have sent food, cards and facebook messages, who had loved my daddy at times it seems as much as i did. your generosity toward my family is overwhelming. maybe now daddy understands just how much he meant to all who knew him. susan
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
Me To the Core
Core story. What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.)Author: Molly O'Neill, Harper Collins Children's
A few years ago I got an email from the editor of a regional magazine I had been writing for, asking for writers willing to undergo a personal makeover for the sake of the story. I was 49 years old and in that space of life when, as I say in the story, we want Oprah’s people to call and offer to transform us into someone more beautiful than we feel.
So, I jumped. A freelancer at the time, I was not about to turn down good money, even if it meant being subjected to bleaches and pincers and people poking at my particulars. I imagined myself under the influence of Stacy London and Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, finally throwing out that aqua pique pantsuit I wore for my book tour 10 years ago, because you know, I might just fit into it one day again soon. Stylist Nick Arrojo with his sexy Manchester accent giving me just the right cut, and makeup artist Carmindy (what kind of name is that, Carmindy? Could I combine my names somehow, Sustella? Stellusan?)... Carmindy telling me what I really need is a smokey eye. Oh, how I wanted a smokey eye.
What I didn't know was that the story required not only a hair/makeup/clothing makeover — which was hard enough — but that I work with a life coach. A LIFE coach! I didn't agree to anything about changing my life. But I had signed on, so I was in. For five weeks (FIVE WEEKS!) I spent time on the phone with my life coach, with my space organizer, with my clothes makeover maven. The organizer came to my house and transformed my office. (And because of her I now have wonderful built-in book shelves.) The clothes maven came to my closet, and I was embarrassed that I don't have a light close enough by to see what I am trying to find. Even now.
The final day would be with the hairstylist, then shopping for a new chic image. (Thank goodness the photos are lost to the magazine archive.) I approached each with trepidation. What did those women really feel when found on a NYC street by Meredith and Matt and Ann and Al and taken off for a day of transformation?
I would soon find out.
On the final day, before I was to have my physical transformation, I met with my life coach at a coffee shop. And OMG (though that expression didn't exist in the vernacular at the time) I was thrilled at the outcome of my little treasure map project. But she was not.
"All you have here are words," she said. "Where are the pictures?" Pictures? Well, I had a few. (ok, four.) But I guess the assignment was NO words.
Imagine.
When I thought about it, the magazine pictures of women smiling whom I had never met, objects I would never own.. they didn't draw my eye. What I saw before she pointed to the lack of pictures, was art— something I had created that reflected quite by accident the me at that moment, and probably the me of every moment since I could spell out words at all, on the chalkboard lines my teacher drew in front of me in first grade.
I remember that, how my teacher, Mrs. Pippen, used to write the letters out in yellow chalk, spelling plain old words across the chalkboard in fine block letters that looked like art to me. And she could take that old eraser, wipe it all away, and make a whole new sentence, all over again. What magic, that was. (Yes, I do realize how weird that is.)
How wonderful, to be able to put one letter in front of the other to make a word. And then a sentence. A paragraph. A page. A story.
But according to my life coach, I had not followed the directions. I had made a C. Well, there you also have me. C. To the Core.
And so, in the beginning of my "finding" (my word for 2011,) today I revisited that treasure map, the one that didn't have (enough) pictures. Looking at it now I am embarrassed at how much I haven't done, but heartened that it still holds the secrets to what I wish for myself, at my core.
My purple room friend today took a look at the map and suggested I pick pieces of it to write about during this year. What a wonderful idea. My own little Reverb, she said. A goal I will set for myself. When I am stuck, and maybe when I am not.
What my 49-year-old self meant by the words "Sane, polished, and ready for anything," I have no idea. But I am just curious enough about her to dig out the old chalk board and eraser, to wiggle with the words enough, to find out.
sbr
I Beg To Differ
I can get very lost in thought, get drawn full tilt into a good book.
My eyes have been described at "ice water blue" (35 years ago, and tired as they are today, I still can't forget it.)
I can see the big picture, but can capture the moment.
I get homesick, even now.