There is one image I keep pushing away. It is my dad's face when the doctors were trying to revive him in his hospital bed, and a part of me knew that he was gone.
The end wasn't melodramatic. No doctor came in to tell us he was failing and it was time to say goodbye. In fact, he was already scheduled for physical therapy that afternoon, and after his second session he was going to be discharged.
It wasn't like he gasped or struggled for breath. One moment he was lightly snoring in his sleep, the next moment he was turning gray. When I called the nurses the realization that he might be gone was like a thump in the chest. They tried to revive him twice, but the heart monitor was flat.
The same thump in the chest would come at odd times: when we cleaned out his room and I saw his sandals, and there was the thought that he would never wear them again; when I checked the row of canned goods and powdered milk in boxes that he had stocked, and I found out that half of them had already expired in 2008; when I saw my address from the letter I sent him, stapled to the wall; when I took back the picture of my youngest daughter from his things, the grandchild he never got to see in person.
The thump in the chest is a reminder that he is gone. I dreamed of Daddy last night. It was his birthday, and we all went home. He was pleasantly surprised and he was so glad to see all three of his granddaughters. I woke up with his lopsided smile in my mind, and then, again, there came the image of his face in the hospital. His eyes had been half open, and they remained that way, even when they left him covered with a blanket and allowed us to say goodbye.
No comments:
Post a Comment