My Dad, Part II

I held my father's hand. I talked to him. He continued to breathe raggedly, the oxygen mask on his face. I tried to memorize what he looked like, what he sounded like, what was happening. I knew that these would be my last memories of him.

Eventually I asked the nurses if I could stay the night. The chair in the bedroom turned into a tiny twin bed. One nurse brought me McDonalds and I ate greedily. I showered in the bathroom that was attached to my father's room, quickly so that I wasn't gone if something were to happen. I held my father's hand, I continued to talk to him. Although he never responded I tell myself that he knew I was there for him. When I laid down in my tiny bed I attempted to sleep. I was comforted by the snoring sound of my father breathing. I knew as long as I could hear him breathing that he was alive.

My father started pausing longer between breaths, and every time I held my breath, waiting, listening. The night passed and I slept fitfully. In the morning I called the Reverend that my father had been conversing with for several months. She was part of the home health care team, and she would visit my father and talk to him. He made a deal with her, she could come as long as she didn't preach to him. She asked him if she should come every two weeks after the first meeting. He said that every week would be fine. She had won him over. I knew about this because he had told me in an email. I did not talk to my father often toward the end of his life, talking required breath and energy while typing required just one finger if you were my father. I have all of his emails.

I called the Reverend and she came. I don't know why I needed her, but her presence comforted me. I suppose that my Catholic upbringing is more sturdy than I thought, because it didn't seem proper for my father to pass without a priest there for him. Even if she wasn't Catholic, even if my father was agnostic and stubborn, I needed her there.

We talked all day. We talked to my father and I told stories, all the stories I had for my father. Stories that he didn't know, and ones he was there to live through. I told the story of my firstborn son, the one I gave up for adoption. My father was the only family member that supported me through it. I told funny drunken stories, sad stories, and I just kept talking. I was celebrating my father's life with him, holding his hand, laughing and then sobbing and laughing again.

Toward the end of the day, the primary hospice nurse came in and was confused by the oxygen mask on my father's face. He was due for his antibiotics and the nurse started to get upset about what was going on with her patient and I was confused. The nurses conferred for a moment, they talked with the Reverend and then finally explained to me what was happening.

I knew that my father was dying, but he had been dying for so long. Initially the nurses had said that he could last for days or weeks and now I got the truth from the primary hospice nurse. The oxygen mask was keeping him alive, and when it was removed, he would die. As his only daughter, his only child, his only family, I had to make the choice to take away his oxygen.

I thought about it. I wanted him to stay. I wanted another night, another week, I wanted more, just a little more. And then I remembered watching someone else dying, and saying to myself, "When the time comes for my father to die, I will not selfishly keep him here to make me feel better, I will let him go. I will end his suffering." I could not make him struggle for every breathe another night. I could not do this to my father just because I wanted him to stay.

I asked the Reverend to say some words over my father, and she apologized to him before she started, saying: "I am doing this at your daughter's request because she loves you" and she prayed.

I took the mask off my father's face and put it down. Instantly his breathing turned from loud grasping breathes to soft, smooth breathing like I have not heard him breathe in years. I held his hand. He continued to breathe, his face was peaceful, he was relaxed and I cried silently while I held his hand. Within minutes the breathing slowed, slower and slower still and then he was gone. My father was dead.

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There is a little more to come. Thank you, I needed this so much. I needed to sit here and type away and cry with tears just rolling down my face as my husband holds me. It hurts, but I need it. I need to let just a little bit go. My father would not want me to hurt like this for so long. I know.

*To each of you that read this little blog. Thank you for listening and letting me share. Sometimes I feel lonely out here in the Blogosphere, and sometimes you make me feel that I have so much support. I feel like I can do anything with my "peeps" backing me up.