Reading back on my writing about my father in the last few months has been a kind of comfort for me. There's memories I had forgotten in the violent erasure of his passing. They are an anecdote, I suppose, to the void. And so time moves now to the last day. It feels important to capture it before he fades entirely.
There is also the terrible hours before dawn when my head is full of his music and my heart longs for my father.
We knew there were only days left - the palliative team had switched and he was in a hospital bed in his bedroom. It is a beautiful room still, with views onto the garden where grevillea nod with the rustling of honey eaters and wattle birds. Everyone who entered it was captured immediately by how beautiful it was.
It was the first truly warm Spring day - no wind, slightly overcast, but humming with the thrill of the coming summer. I planned to be at their house by 11.30 - I'm not normally so precise but it seemed important I was there by then. We went to the hardware store to get wood for the back deck, and did a bit of housework before driving the half hour drive to my parents.
I write the mundane details, perhaps, to make the day last. I am inside the memory where my father in drawing breath still.
We check on him in the bedroom. He is wearing his flannel shirt, the blue one with the bleach stains from cleaning the pool. Men do that. They wear their good clothes doing dirty with despite their wives nagging. He was wearing it because he had fallen the night before and hurt his arm and it was too painful to put a T-shirt on. Instead the nurses had helped him out on the shirt. He was barely speaking but when they asked him if he'd like a shave in the morning he joked quietly and sternly "don't ... touch'. It was the last of a handful of words he would say.
A little morphine had him soften in his pain. The pain was so awful Mum can't help but return to it now. I remember his articulate moans now when I slept on the couch one night in a storm. It helped off shed his agony.
He was sleeping so we sat in the next room where Mum talked to us about what was going on. In my mind I was wondering if I should spend the day and night on the couch. I so desperately, desperately wanted to be there when he died. Irrational, perhaps, but I dreaded the phone call and the lonely drive down.
My uncle George, his brother, arrived with my Aunty Sue. They only live a block away. George was quite insistent they were there at 12. Sue had brought a huge container of pumpkin soup we'd all share out in cups in the late afternoon. Then it was sustenance and comfort in our grief, warm and sweet and nourishing.
And so it was that we were sitting chatting in the next room when he passed at about 12.15. Mum had gone to check on him minutes before but he was sleeping. I heard Mum crying his name and knew. We all looked at each other and I ran toward them. Has he gone, Mum? She was touching his face, his chest, sobbing his name. Oh, Dad. His face was twisted, his jaw slack. He looked yellow, and very ill. But he has gone. The pain was leaving.
I called for Jamie to ring my sister. She didn't answer so he drove to get her, sobbing himself. Later my son would say I was business like, callimg people who needed to know (including him, who made the drive down from Melbourne and hour away) and making sure everyone was okay. Mum wanted me to call his estranged brother as even in her grief worried about others and felt it wasn't fair the three brothers weren't together for the last time. I rang his friends, who felt like uncles, and they sobbed in confusion and shock down the line.
My uncle George grabbed my hand and sobbed: 'who an I going to surf with now?'. He meant more than that. They were brothers.
Mum did not let go of his hand.
My oldest nephew was sobbing. 'Who is going to sneak me extra ice cream now?' he cried. We are all full of black humour and we are joking with him too as we did in life. My nephew is 19 and has had this man in his life as a second father. I am realizing Dad had a way of making every one of us feel special. How are we special without him?
And there went the afternoon, gathering the immediate family and sitting together either in the next room or by his bed. The grandsons played guitar in the next room, the three of them jamming. He would have loved that and I like to think he was listening for a long, long time before his spirit let go of the room.
I sat with him for a good period too, conscious of this last goodbye. My Father's hands. His diminished body. The nurses came and cleaned him up and set his face to rights. As the day wore on the yellow left him. His body softened. The old yogi in his last savasana, I thought privately. What an honour it had been breathing next to him in yoga studios all my life. Om, I thought.
By 6 pm we were ready, and they took his body from us. He was still wearing the flannel shirt and a pair of new Volcom trousers Mum had bought him. He'd be buried in that, a thought we all loved.
We ordered fish and chips and cried and laughed and began the journey of saying a long goodbye.
The words will stop, but I still wake very early in the morning with his music in my head. I lay quietly in savasana and listen to the dawn birds.
With Love,
Are you on HIVE yet? Earn for writing! Referral link for FREE account here
Tears rolled down my cheeks @riverflows. I admire your strength , I can't imagine how I will feel if my parents go. Being away for years, I have not spent much time with them, except visiting for a couple of weeks then back In the UK every few years. I feel I needed to spend more time with them and have fun while they can. 💜💚🧡
It's definitely about making memories. I'm sure spending time with them won't be a regret but an honour. It's hard when we have other lives though. I was lucky I came back to spend a few more months with him. It's incredibly hard letting go - writing helps, as do comments like yours.
Sending love. 💛
I have not written down that last day, Christmas Day 2020. It was Tom and family and I there, I was next to him when he went at 3:26PM. The family had played guitar and sang songs for him around 1PM.
I loved reading what you remember of his last day.
I wanted to capture it before it faded or got distorted. I don't want it to be a trauma. It was beautiful really.
To go with family and friends around - how beautiful. Music must ease our passage at least a little. I remember it was Christmas and I felt so sad for you because I know how much you loved Christmas and him as well. Much love.
Sometimes they wait for specific landmarks to be met. I think he waited to be with me on Christmas.
We can never give it all especially in situations with death. Its was painful, because as I was reading I remembered my parents especially my mum. I feel like seeing and being with her, but its no longer possible.
Death is something we have no power of our own to stop. But golden memories are ever green in our hearts ♥️
It's hard isn't it? I know I had exactly the right amount of time with him and have not a single regret but I'd love just one more day. But I got more than most. Thanks for your kind words.
Your post lead me to a full on
ballfestbawlfest. If the truth were known they were tears for my loss, yet in empathy with yours. ✌️&💛I think you meant bawlfest. I did a double take then and ended up laughing out loud which I really needed this morning.
Empathy can be so painful, right? I feel that pain thinking about my Mum at the moment.
Us humans are all united in our grief. We need to be kinder to each other because of it.
Corrected. Boy one little letter invokes such a different image! 🤣
It sure does! Thanks for the giggle xx
Hi. Dealing with the death is very hard, especially when it take away someone close to us. But the most important learning we can take form this kind of situation is learn to take with the beatiful Moments we enjoy every day with the loved persons in our life, I think.
I think gratitude and joy in the small things is important, you're right. Thankyou.
Awwe. Your grief. Beautiful in it's own way. How very special you enjoyed yoga practices next to your dad for so long. Such a gift. ❤️🙏
Oh honey. If only you could see the myriad of ways in which you are special. Because of your father (and so many other things), and he in turn, was made more special by having you beautiful souls around. It's how people work. <3
When I first heard it referred to as "corpse pose" I thought fuck me, that's grim. Gradually, I realized it wasn't, at all. It's natural. It's a small step to remind us all of the inevitability and natural progression of this big change.
Thanks beautiful. Your words matter to me.
It's beautiful, savasana. We are all headed there - it's natural indeed. It also is about letting go. Something I'm working on xx