Rest in Peace, Daddy

Late on the night of March 5, one of my sisters called to tell me that my father had taken a sudden turn for the worse and was on life support. There was no chance of recovery, she said, and the decision had been made to terminate the medical intervention. The next evening I boarded a plane in the direction of Boston. After 24 hours of traveling, I joined my immediate family at the hospital. It was a shock to see him, bloated and grey, attached to a myriad of murmuring machines. The nurses had taped one of his eyes shut. I rested my hand on his forehead, and told him I loved him. Part of me was afraid that his one untaped eye would suddenly pop open at my touch. He was such a tough old codger, could this really be the end? Wouldn’t he wake up one last time to tell me to straighten my back? My sister and I bought a Snickers Bar from the cafeteria vending machine. This was his favorite candy – we layed it on his laboring chest.

My other sister invited a local Unitarian Universalist pastor to come and comfort the family. Her words were beautiful and appropriate, about how we may never understand the complicated life of this man, yet we will carry him around in our hearts for all our days. “We are come to a time when we can acknowledge this man and all the events and questions and demands of his life,” she read. “Let us acknowledge that, like us, he was human. Whether he was at one moment etched in pain and at another elated with joy, he was joined to all of us in his simple, complicated, enigmatic, humanity.”

We each took a bite of the Snickers in a symbolic tribute to the joyful moments of his life, which appeared to be so few and far between, especially in his final years as he fell more deeply and irrevocably into the clutches of his alcoholism. As he gasped his last breaths we wept and held each other, sharing in the passing of the daddy, the husband, the brother, the uncle who had loved us in such bewildering ways.