2001-04-18 - 18:01 M DST

THE WONDERING JEW

So Long

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you. - - - Maya Angelou."

Is this a natural part of spring, I wonder ? Death ? Does awareness of spring and the realization that one has survived another winter -- cheated death once again bring it to mind ? Spring the happy time of year, but in passing I guess, we realize our mortality and remember those who have left us behind.

So many things I have run into on the net recently mention something anent death.

Checking in on "Becky Says" today I read her entry concerning the sad episode in her life which although sad, made her a stronger person I believe.

Through the day, that was in the back of my mind probably and when running into Maya Angelou's words I quoted at the start of this entry, it told me "Now is the time."

This not a story such as Becky related. It is much more mundane, but there is something there saying to me, "Tell it, tell it, if only to yourself, put it out where you can see it for yourself and put a final closing on the episode.

My Dad was a very precise, methodical, gentle, very independent and shy person. One who I feared greatly when a child. He worked hard all his life from age 11, conscientiously doing the best he could. He took care of himself asking for help only if it was impossible to do what was needed without aid.

He had suffered several strokes, but retained his awareness and ability to communicate. There is a long, unknown history that I will never know, his second wife of many years suffered cancer for a long time even after we heard about it. Eventually she went to the hospital and Dad apparently feeling that her end was near went into hospital too, to have an operation on his prostate, but I think really just to be near her. She expired in a short time, dignified to the end. The last words I heard her say was, "I did the best I could."

He put himself into an assisted living facility. A nice place, hospitable warm with caring personnel. We would visit him oftener than we did before his wife got too ill to handle company. However after a period of time that proud, independent man let it be known to us that he was unhappy there.

On getting word that his house had been broken into, he became even more discontent. He had been there since 1937 and fourty years later could not seem to become content with anything else but being in his home.

My job in a nearby town was winding down and I would come into town and spend the night at his house. Still it was obvious to me that he fretted and was unhappy.

I had told him that my job out of town was about done and that we were moving back to town. One visit he approached the subject by saying that he wished we could live with him. Between he, Heather and I it was planned and accomplished, we moved in with him after bringing him to his home.

He, Heather and our youngest daughter got along with each other well, his meals were to his satisfaction, all was good.

But age has a way of cutting one down gradually. Came the time he couldn't arise from his chair without help. Later, he began to fall when up. I would stand behind him while he did his morning ablutions holding him up.

He had cataracts in both eyes to the extent he had trouble watching tv. He had one eye operated on, planning to have the other one done after that one healed.

Dad was now spending his days in a wheel chair in front of a tv he couldn't see, hearing what news was on. That surgery was before insertion of plastic lens became routine. So it would have been a long time before both eyes healed and thick lensed glasses could be fitted.

Yet, never a complaint from him. He was prompt in thanking us for anything we did for him. I could feel the Angel hovering and dared not say anything to anyone.

I began to give him range of motion exercises in his bed before I dressed him and put him in the wheelchair.

In my time off third shift work I visited with him to the extent he wished, telling him the latest jokes going around and discussing the news.

Before the other eye could be operated on he began to go into contractures.

Yet he enjoyed sitting at the table and being fed. All along I kept striving to help him maintain a range of motion, to no real profit for him.

His last days seemed to me to be a cruel trial for him as he became feebler and more confined in his own body.

Finally, on a visit to his doctor, we were informed that the only relief from the contortion of his limbs was to have his hamstrings cut so that he could lay in a comfortable position in bed at night. As we waited for the Ambo-cab Dad turned aside and said to me, "Well, I guess that's it." I tried to pooh-pooh his line of thinking. Telling him that he couldn't use his legs anyway and that they were causing him pain the way they were. But he was downcast nevertheless. That was on a Friday afternoon.

The following Sunday, going into his bedroom I gave him my usual greeting, "Hi, Dad how you doing ? Laying there he said, "Fine." There was something strange in his voice, I hurried to the side of his bed and held him in my arms as he died.

He was eighty years old, had lived a full life, but was in misery of one kind or another for the last few of his years.

This is no train-wreck story, but the story of a wonderful man who lived it out to the last second. Without complaint, as gracefully as he could. I am grateful that we could be with him for the last few years, helping as much as we could and keeping him in the place he wanted to be -- home.

He is not dead to me, because he is not forgotten, and never will be. At the cemetery, as the folks headed for their cars, I lingered a bit and said to my Dad, "So Long . . . . "

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