When my brother brought my father to the VA hospital weeks ago, my father listed his religion preference as atheist.   I guess if your wife was taken from you twenty years too soon, you too would question God’s existence.  I think he thought he was going to avoid any chaplain visits but to no avail.  On our visit this past weekend, the chaplain came in to give my Dad a Valentine’s card.   Since my father is bed-ridden, the chaplain’s got a captive audience, maybe that is why his office is on the hospice floor.  I heard my father say, “oh shit,” under his breath, knowing he couldn’t escape, as the chaplain approached him.  But being the class-act my father has (most) always been, he graciously thanked him for the card, waited for the chaplain to leave, read it with intention and then promptly handed it to me to throw away.   

Spending hours with my father during this end of life-time is a joy.  He’s still so with it.  He barely misses a beat, cracking jokes based on something I told him just yesterday as easily as recounting old stories, as if they too happened yesterday.  Stories years ago he would never have told his daughter, but today, all bets are off.  

My oldest brother “walking” in on them.  

Christening my childhood home before they even owned it.  

A less than copacetic day “making bookie rounds” with his friend (the bookie) involving a backseat shotgun. 

A first date in high school to his sister’s farm where his date ended up in a pile of manure and he wouldn’t let her get in his truck (hence most always class-act).  

My Dad is the consummate old-school salesman:  charismatic, engaged, totally present.  Aside from the weekly annoyance of an occupational therapist (“she tries to teach me things I’ve done one billion times!’), he is thankful to anyone who does anything for him.   He asks the names of everyone who comes in his room, whether to bring a tray of food or administer meds.  If he can’t recall a name, he will ask again and as they leave, he always says “thank you.” I love watching him in action.  And at 89, I love that he sees equality, from the janitor to the doctor, despite the diversity in race or job description.  He is ahead of his time.   

But time is a commodity now.   It’s hard to imagine he is leaving me.  He is leaving us.  With the constraints of living so far away I find myself looking at the second hand of his hospital room clock thinking of Tom Cruise in Risky Business when the clock ticks backwards.  I only wish. 

So I take it all in.  I take him all in.  I take in the back-lit wispy gray hairs on his unshaved head, his flirting with pretty much any woman who walks in the door (but especially Miss California, a Valentine’s treat), his requests to have his feet rubbed (which I do, despite those toenails!), his opinions on the latest polls, his devouring of a Baskin-Robbins extra thick chocolate shake (and the last moment phone call to make sure it isn’t any of that “ice-milk shit”).  I read aloud a letter from my oldest son, Vince, who is in Ranger School and unable to see my Dad.  Vince mentions how he thinks of his grandpa every day and hopes to see him when he finishes. I cry through this part but knew I would have regretted not reading it to him.  I take in his song to my sister on her birthday when she walked in to his hospital room.  Undoubtedly her last birthday song from him.  It was painfully beautiful.  I want to always remember these times. Even the tough ones.

Helping the caregiver get him in and out of his wheelchair, his skin is so thin.  His spine protruding from what was once a such a strong build, his body is completely exposed.  He is completely exposed.  I can’t help but wonder,  how long will he put up with this last chapter?   

Maybe it’s the atheism keeping him here.  The thought there is nothing more to life than this moment now.  He has 89-years-hindsight of time wasted or spent otherwise in bad judgment.  Maybe this is why he holds on. 

He is transitioning now.  He is seeing shadows and dreaming of his mother and my mother. Yet it’s not my place to instill my spiritual beliefs on him, to let him know he will be with them again, with all of us again and it’s ok to let go.   As his caregiver said to me, “Everyone has their own journey.”  I have to honor his.  

The last night of our visit, he had taken some pain medication, exhausting him.   He was nodding off and my sister and I said our goodbyes.  He said, “I will see you tomorrow.”  We said, “No Daddy, we won’t be here.  We leave early in the morning.”  He said, “Well, I still hope I see you tomorrow.”  That was a tough one to hear.  Hope is not my strategy.  I know I will see him again.   Until then, sleep well, Daddy.