A Blue and Golden Moment
A dear artist friend of mine, Marsha Lehmann, inspired me with the idea of a "blue and golden moment"--she had done a painting of a little cowboy--Small Adjustments--dressed in blue jeans and shirt with a background all in gold. I saw that painting and it brought to mind life in western North and South Dakota--a life filled with expansive, cerulean-blue skies and the fields of grain and hay ripening to a deep golden ochre. I get out in that openness and it invites me to take a deep breath of its sweetness and to open up my heart, to embrace the life dancing all around me in its myriad forms.
As I was writing about her painting, I began to recall many of the works of Vincent Van Gogh--and I had a strong sense that he would have understood my concept of a blue and golden moment. It's a moment so exquisite--so intensely joy-filled and golden--that the thought of its departure in the next breath causes a pang of deep sadness and tears--blueness. I've had many such moments, but the one that jumps to the forefront is a Tuesday in early August, 2003.
Just the weekend before, I'd made the long drive alone from the Twin Cities to my brother-in-law's and sister's farm in order to stay with them to help care for my dad, who'd been diagnosed with lung cancer the previous Monday. My mom had passed away 21 months earlier, and it had been really difficult for my dad without her, though, he really did try. He was just so lost without her. He'd chosen to not take any treatments.
I met Dad at the Gateway Inn Restaurant Saturday morning. As I was sitting in the booth awaiting his arrival, two of his friends talked of taking Dean (my dad) down to Deadwood to gamble one last time. I didn't like the assumption that he wasn't going to be around much longer (and them talking about it so openly in my presence when I hadn't seen him yet), but I stuffed it down and kept quiet. This is not to point fingers at Dad's friends--they had the best of intentions--it's just my attempt to convey my emotional state and thoughts at the time.
Finally Dad appeared and slowly, agonizingly, made his way down what seemed like an awful long distance from the front door to our booth. I quickly rose and went to meet him halfway and to give him a hug--but the hug felt like it back-fired on me. I seemed to be too close to him, robbing his precious air space--and guiltily I stepped back, so afraid that I'd harmed him.
That was the last hug I gave my dad in that way. I found a replacement for it, which turned out to be a good thing, but that's a whole other story.
Other family members were coming out to my sister's farm to see Dad about the same time of my arrival so the days were busy from the start. Dad had been set up with some supplemental oxygen tanks that he and my sister had been shown how to use--but he only had it on hand at night, and used it only to walk from his van, where he was sleeping, to the bathroom in the house. Laurie and Terry's home was newly built with freshly laid flooring, carpeting and freshly coated woodwork--plus it was an extremely hot, dry summer so the fumes from the glues and coverings were curing off. Anyone who's challenged with breathing knows how much worse it feels in those conditions. So, Dad was, for the most part, camping out in his van. He came in the house for meals and to use the facilities, but he was more at ease in his van.
I need to point out that Dad sleeping in his van was not a new thing. He'd done that from time to time even before Mom died, when he had trouble with feeling closed-in and with breathing. He began having difficulty getting his air years earlier and had doctored for it--even quit smoking after a lifetime of it--after getting into a grain bin that had some mold-tainted dust in it. In short, all of us understood that his van was pretty much his home.
The night before Dad was to leave the next morning with his buddies for his gambling trip (his sister had even given him some money to gamble with earlier in the day), he told me he was concerned about whether he should go on the trip or not. He was afraid of hurting his friends' feelings by not going, and feeling afraid that he would be hurting his kids and family by risking the trip and possibly dying while he was away from us. I ultimately left the choice up to him, but I also understood that his friends were important to him, too, and I reassured him that we (his kids) would be okay and support him whatever he decided was the thing to do.
The next morning his anxiety level was such that he couldn't make it up the stairs to the kitchen without assistance. His friends showed up and assured him that they'd stop in Buffalo (about 17 miles away) for breakfast, see how he felt there, and then decide whether to go on down to Deadwood. We sent an oxygen tank along with them, just in case--and off they went. I was anxious, but I also believed he was in good hands. I just knew how concerned he was with leaving from our talk the night before, and I felt his struggle as my own.
Terry and their three boys--an eighth-grader, freshman and sophomore--had gone out to a field, south of the place to pick up square bales that the boys were selling. After Dad left, Laurie invited me to go out with her to join them. They had nearly completed a load on the trailer when we reached them, so after a few bales more, the boys climbed onto the stack of bales and we climbed back into our vehicle and followed them over to the shed to unload.
I loved watching those brothers as they were chatting and laughing with each other, a couple of them chewing on the end of a grass stalk while riding on those stacked golden bales as the trailer and truck made it's way across the golden fields--all of it framed in the bluest sky you can imagine. The image is etched in my heart as well as my memory. It was glorious, and I still get a bit choked up and teary-eyed with the feelings it evokes in me. It was an absolutely loaded-to-overflowing moment.
We got to the shed and Terry unloaded the bales from the trailer while the rest of us stacked them inside. All was going well, when suddenly, I had no air whatsoever. I wasn't gasping for air, but I also wasn't breathing. I made my way out the door and around the corner and slipped down onto the ground with my back against the wall. The next thing I knew tears were rolling down my cheeks and I was sobbing--and finally breathing.
In all the time that it had taken me to drive from the cities and get into a bit of a rhythm as far as helping to care for Dad, I hadn't found a safe time and place to cry it all out. Everything had been stuffed down inside me until that moment--and when I finally got that moment it came packaged in the same symptoms my dad had. I guess that's what you call empathy.
Later that afternoon, Dad and his friends returned home--they were cracking jokes and laughing and having a great time together. Dad's eyes had his familiar sparkle. His feet were swollen (a first), but I was glad he had risked the journey--it had done us all good. And it got me ready for the days ahead.
It had truly been, in all manners of the words--a blue and golden day.
With love and honor, Dad...
The thing about having the blue with the golden moment is that the golden moment becomes even more precious, more so appreciated, by the one experiencing it. Otherwise it probably, sadly, would go unnoticed.
For as long as I can remember, I had been preparing for my dad's departure from this life. As a kid, and later as an adult, I used to have nightmares/dreams of driving down familiar roads that had been so much a part of our life together--only now I was driving them without my dad. One particular dream was actually pretty golden in color as I remember it now. It feels like we had an agreement--and we both recognized it.
The day I called home to Mom and Dad, crying my eyes out because I was burned out with school (I pretty much had walking pneumonia most of the prior quarter and I was emotionally exhausted trying to force myself to fit into a story that just felt suffocating), Dad left in the middle of the night to drive the 6 1/2 hours to Fargo to arrive on the dorm doorsteps at eight o'clock the next morning to take me home. No questions asked.
My parents never told me I had to go to college or that I had to get a job when it didn't work out--I made those choices on my own, and they honored them.
So, after getting the call from my dad and sister, Laurie, that Dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer, it only seemed natural to go home to be with him, though I had no idea how long it would be.
My husband wasn't thrilled with me--I had just completed the first three weeks of a 4-month program in massage therapy at the Aveda Institute, and I withdrew without asking him his opinion. You see, he thought he was finally on the road to having a wife with a career (hard to explain the other version to his peers)--heck, at that time, a job would have been just great--ha! I admit it, I was stubborn, and I hadn't quite fully let myself know why yet--I was enjoying playing the victimhood game of "poor me--Kelly just doesn't even try to understand me." The drama queen role is such a fun, irresistible one, don't you know.
Anyway, after a highly dramatic week of phone-throwing, T-shirt ripping, silent glares, packing like a banshee everything I owned into the trunk of the car, Kel and I finally came to a truce (I'm grinning and laughing here with the memories), and I headed to Ludlow, SD to spend what would unfold to be the last 3 1/2 weeks of my dad's life with him.
Okay--after stepping away for a moment to eat a bite, I acknowledged to myself that this particular story is too loaded and long to get down in one post, so I'm going to segue over to the ripped T-shirt story--I'm dying to share it, and my sister-in-law said she still got a chuckle over it the last time we were together.
Anyway, Kel and I had been glaring silently back and forth for a good part of the week, when finally somehow we started "talking." He was wearing a white undershirt T-shirt and was sitting in the big chair with the ottoman. I don't remember exactly what I said--just the key parts and the jist of what I was thinking at the time. He made some comment about my quitting school without his approval--or my even asking him his opinion. And my response was to straddle his lap on my knees, grab him by the shirt collar, dive straight into his eyes with my own eyes and say, "This is NOT 'F-enheimer' about you! This is MY DAD!"
And I must have been jerking on his shirt with each enunciation because at the end of my little speech his shirt tore off in my hands like a kleenex tissue--it ripped that easily. Caught us both by surprise. The "F" word caught me by surprise--it's not one I normally felt comfortable saying and I know Mom normally would have not been thrilled with my use of it. But in this instance, I felt her laugh--it felt like she said, "You go, girl!" (Remember--my mom really liked my husband,too).
Anyway, Kel kept the shirt as a joking reminder. And now it's been posted for anyone to read.
I'm leaving off here for now. For some reason, this story is going to have to come out in small bits. Every time I write a version of it down, more ah-hah!s come with it and it kind of explodes for me. So it's going to be one moment or two at a time...
"Make me into someone you can love???"
Okay--I'm sidetracking from my story with Dad, it seems, but this is at the top in my thoughts so I'm going with it.
Ripping Kel's T-shirt and using that embarrassingly harsh, yet delightfully wicked word had nothing to do with Kel. It could have been anyone outside of me playing his part--I needed someone to act this internal struggle out with me--and I'm fortunate it was him.
I felt that Mom was proud of me in that particular moment because I'd finally authentically found my words, and they came out short, simple, to the point, complete. I was standing inside of myself, being the real me, instead of the closely-monitored, just existing shell of a human that I was until then.
You see, before Kel came along, I'd lost my first boyfriend in a motorcycle accident--his name was Arlen, and he deserves a story all his own. But for now, suffice it to say that I believed for some twenty years after the fact that I'd royally screwed up with Arlen--taken him for granted--and that God had chosen to chastise and discipline me by taking him away. In my mind, I didn't deserve to be having a life without him, yet I kept waking up to a continuous string of new days.
I had recurring nightmares with Arlen returning or not really being dead, only to find that I hadn't waited for him--I was with Kelly. Arlen wouldn't have anything to do with me then. Needless to say--I hated the concept of love triangles in movies and books.
So, that was the foundation upon which I created the relationship I had with Kelly--I handed myself over to him on a platter and pretty much asked him to make me into someone he could love.
First--nothing like asking someone to do the impossible! But he tried--we tried--and we managed to get ourselves into a miserable recycling rut. Oh, the games we will play with each other, all out of love!
Fortunately, I hated playing the victim role enough that I recognized when I was playing that part. I struggled with trying not to be one, only to find myself still feeling like the victim. I tried sneering at myself, beating on myself, only to find it grinning and sticking its tongue out, taunting me.
Nothing like being an actress so immersed in her role that she couldn't seem to step out of character, even when the play and her script was being rewritten. Old habits--they're comfortable even when you're miserable in them.
Somewhere along the way I realized that beating up on myself wasn't changing anything. I looked in the mirror one day, and realized how hard I'd been working to be good, to take responsibility for my own life--all of it. But in order to do that, I had to actually practice loving myself with compassion.
You know, when God told me to love myself that day while washing dishes, I hadn't grasped at all what that meant at the time. It sounded and felt so good, and it resonated with me--but we were just getting started. It was so easy for me to be empathetic and compassionate with people outside of me--but then to do a one-eighty, and wail on myself like a demented taskmaster when I thought I'd screwed up. It didn't dawn on me to do otherwise, until that day I looked in the mirror and finally saw in those eyes someone who was trying so very hard, yet never being given a break by me!
After that moment though, I was given all kinds of opportunities to practice self-love. Kel and everyone else just wouldn't be either emotionally or physically available certain nights. Physical aches and body pains would force me out of bed in the middle of the night, and then downstairs into another room or into the bathroom, where I had to hug myself with compassion while I cried myself through the intense pain. I had buried a lot emotionally, and the physical pain actually helped me get honest about it. Feel, feel, feel...and breathe...and hold and hug...cry...release...
It's a very human thing to be the hardest on oneself...and a very wonderful experience to finally challenge that and see what it's like the other way...My dad was really hard on himself, while much of the time being very loving towards others, so maybe this isn't sidetracking after all...
Not sure what all I've written, but I'm tired of editing, so I'm posting...
With love, Dad, through your feet...
“Dad—I believe everyone goes to heaven. I don’t believe God would leave anyone behind, no matter what.”
“I think so, too, Babe.”
Dad and I had that little exchange two nights before that last highly confusing, life-changing night together.
I’ve heard it said that being born into our harsh reality is actually more traumatic than dying. And while that makes really plausible sense to me today, right now—it wouldn’t have during those last three and a half weeks with Dad. Our story was ending and my world was unraveling. I still feel all choked and my chest feels tight when I remember back to those times.
I felt like a newly-blind person, staggeringly feeling my way through each loaded moment, questioning and doubting myself every step of the way. But underneath it all was a strange knowingness--a standing-firmness--that I wasn’t going to give in to anything other than the belief that my dad was going to be okay. That ultimately he was always in God’s unconditionally-loving and compassionate hands all through life and all through the transition we call death. And no one and nothing was going to get in his way as long as I was around.
In retrospect, my dad had probably one of the most honorable and dignified deaths possible in the context of those times. My sister and brother-in-law, Laurie and Terry, and their sons brought him home to their farm and ranch to live out the remainder of his days. Each morning Terry would take a couple of cups of coffee out to have with Dad out in his van. He slept and pretty much lived in his van, as I explained earlier, due to the curing-off fumes from their newly built house.
One by one, each of their boys, Weston, Jerel and Heath would stop by to visit with their grandpa a moment before heading out to do chores, and then again throughout the comings and goings of their day.
Laurie would make sure he was fed and bathed and ready for the day and cared for in ways too many to list fully enough, and she and I took turns watching out for him at night.
While Laurie kept the home-front running, each morning around eight o’clock, I got the pleasure of accompanying Dad in the short drive in his van to a spot just off the road into Laurie and Terry’s where Dad could get cell phone reception. And Dad would call all our brothers and any other friends he could think of to connect with.
Friends and relatives of all ages from all over the country flew in and drove in to visit with Dad—everyone wanting him to know how much they personally loved and valued him. I loved that they cared so much. Yet at times it was so extremely hot and dry—100+ temperatures, and one day I remember the humidity was only 15% (even I had cotton-mouth that day and difficulty breathing)--and I knew that when you’re sick it gets overwhelming to try to visit. I was torn watching his energy get so depleted while understanding the visits were also amazing gifts meant to honor his life.
On my drive home to spend those last days with him I didn’t know for sure how long he had or even if he was actually going to die. I know people often equate cancer with death—but I didn’t, and still don’t, believe that to be true. And while it seems to be politically correct to blame cigarette smoking/inhaling as the big cause of lung cancer—that idea actually ticked me off--and I've never smoked! Some people live long lives drinking and smoking—and some die young. I've definitely inhaled more 2nd-hand smoke than I ever wanted, but I'm quite healthy, nonetheless.
I’m more inclined to believe it’s about a person’s belief system surrounding the idea of why they’re smoking and whether or not they’re enjoying their life. My dad was blaringly dying of a broken heart—the core reason, I believe, for the dis-ease/cancer in his lungs. And, also—more empoweringly so--because he was ready to end his story.
Inside, I was okay with the idea of Dad dying, but I didn’t believe he (nor I) had to suffer in it, nor did I believe that he had to die unless he chose to. I was set in honoring whatever choice he made, and I tried to convey that to him, but sometimes those words are so hard to find in those moments. This is why I feel so passionate about going beyond the old belief system of death--we've all suffered way too much in this natural process of transition out of our old stories and identities. I'd like to experience it without the traumas and diseases.
I did manage to tell him that I felt that this, our last time together, was meant to be—and he agreed. Not once did he ever bring up me needing to go back to be with Kelly, like he had done with me after Mom died.
Two hours of what was to become my last day of my massage therapy schooling was spent teaching us to do foot reflexology. Learning to give a good foot rub turned out to be the greatest blessing for me in those final days with Dad. Shortly after his return from his gambling trip with his friends, when his feet started to swell, I began massaging his feet using reflexology, where each spot on the foot corresponds to an area or organ in line with it on the whole body. (See archived post from Oct. 2009: A Blue and Golden Moment). The last couple of weeks I pretty much gave him an entire foot rub a minimum of two--and often three—times a day. One each morning to get him up, one after dinner and another to help him sleep at night.
Now, every one of my brothers and my sisters will have a special story about their time with Dad and with our mom—and every one will have its own unique beauty. No one’s story is greater or lesser in importance. The only one I know well enough to tell is my own. I got to have this most precious time, my story with my dad because of my brothers and sisters.
Dad and I bonded during those foot massages in a way far beyond anything either of us expected. After my disastrous experience of hugging him in the restaurant when I first got back to be with him, I no longer allowed myself to hug him for fear of taking up his space or air--and that was a tremendous loss for me. It had always been our custom to kiss on the cheek with a hug, and to wish each other hello, good-bye, goodnight.
I found myself slipping into only what I can call a trance-like state the moment we began the exploration of his body organs through his feet. I could tell by a crinkling, crackling texture whether or not his esophagus or thyroid or lungs were distressed at that moment, and I could relieve that area by massaging it out. And he’d often ask me if I noticed anything in the area of his liver and pancreas, and it would give us both a breath of relief to be able to honestly answer no.
Sometimes he’d have more difficulty getting his breath or getting his lungs free of phlegm and mucous—and his anxiety and panic would spike due to his fear of dying in his sleep, before he was ready to go. I found that by simply holding his feet, looking into his eyes and taking deep, calming breaths myself, would somehow reach him through my touch and slow and calm his breathing and anxiety. Actually, when massaging the point for the diaphragm, we were taught to slide our thumbs from the center outward and then back inward in conjunction with the patient inhaling and exhaling three times--this practice seemed to get us breathing through the whole process in tandem.
Day by day, his condition worsened. He didn’t want to be dependent on the canned oxygen, but his panic attacks got so bad in the middle of the night when he’d stop breathing while he was sleeping that Laurie and I began taking turns sleeping outside with him. Neither Dad nor Laurie nor I realized, until after one particularly hard and memorable night, that we could leave the tank on to help him breathe in his sleep.
I’m not really a nurse-type personality, nor was I there when he was shown how to operate the tanks so I was pretty ignorant on that aspect. Plus, Laurie and I left Dad’s use of the oxygen up to his discretion—neither of us believed in forcing him to do something he didn’t feel at ease with. If we came across a new approach on something, we consulted him first—and then only did it if we had his consent.
We all, and each, did the best we knew how in the moment at hand. I no longer do the "if only-s, woulda, coulda, shouldas."
Love you, Dad...
Ego Agendas, Clashes & Pedestals
About a month before these last days with my dad I met a new friend in the Twin Cities. We talked only once before my dad died and then it took us a couple of months afterward to reunite. But once we did get together, I made a fully conscious choice of being really honest with her about myself. She was my safe, sacred space. She had no connections with my family, friends or the community where I grew up. Anything I told her wouldn't go beyond her, and if it did, the people wouldn't know me anyway.
So, Cheryl, my beloved sister--this one is in honor of you...you were the gift I gave myself that made me able to speak my heart and soul out loud, in a blog on the Internet, of all things...
When you're human, victim hood on some level is seemingly a part of you...and it really becomes apparent when someone is sick and/or dying. You don't even have to be the one who is sick and dying--just a member of the crew is all it takes.
And if you're feeling like a victim, you're feeling powerless, helpless--and you're saying anything and doing anything to try to make yourself feel a bit more in control, a bit more at peace--and sometimes trying not to feel at all. It's quite a game--and I played it as fully and completely as anyone else outside of me.
I observed some people worrying about Dad's spiritual welfare--he allowed himself to be baptized for about the fourth time in his life, the second time within a year, all because someone wanted to "do something" for him, and he recognized that it was a gift he could give them.
He was willing to undergo all kinds of tests by other doctors in order to give another person a bit more sense of having "tried everything," but his physical condition deteriorated so quickly that he wasn't able to withstand the long drives to hospitals that were so far away. Sometimes doctoring can be a full-time job and commitment all in itself--and long commutes can be exhausting in themselves.
And when I started doing the foot reflexology with him, I squirmingly noticed that I, too, had my own personal agenda of trying to heal him. But then, one auspicious night, he gave me the gift of clashing his will with mine--a pair of stubborn "Lewtonschteins," as Dad would have called us. Grin.
It was, possibly, one of the best gifts he could have ever given me. I got so angry, I got real, I got honest with myself. I let go of trying to control the situation.
There was a big emotional tug-of-war going on the whole time we were with Dad. He was a rescuer, and when his rescuees began showing up, wanting more of his time and energies, he was so depleted he had nothing to give them--and more importantly, no desire to continue playing that old role with them. So he began to depend on us girls to intervene for him so he basically wouldn't look like the bad guy.
Also, when a person is sick and dying, I think it's pretty difficult to not feel angry. Anger often is a good signal of feeling like a victim in some way. And then you feel ashamed of yourself for such feelings when you love the ones with you so much and they're trying so hard to keep you comfortable and happy.
Yet that anger still finds its way to the surface, and because of the shame and the fear of being personally rejected--it comes out in even more insidious ways. He wouldn't complain directly to the person with whom he had the beef with, he'd complain to another one about the other--and I got so pissed at the blatant manipulations of us all by him, that I ran crying one afternoon to my older brother to just get rid of my own anger.
Yeah--there I was, doing the exact same manipulation game that my dad was doing--taking my beef with him to another.
But then one night, thanks to my monthly visitor, I didn't have the physical stamina to be the doormat with him that I was thinking I maybe should be with the "poor dying man." Yeah, Dad--I can feel you chuckling now with me, but it was a highly dramatic thing for me that night. I was supposed to be this all-loving, nurturing daughter, and the one night I picked to clash with you you were low on oxygen, in a panic...I replay the scene in my head, and I just know it would have made a very entertaining part of a movie.
When we got Dad ready to sleep at night (after the foot rub) in his van, we'd layer pillows in a specific manner to keep him somewhat in a partial sitting position in order to help him breathe and keep the mucus draining downward instead of toward his head. We'd tuck blankets around his feet in such a way that they were kept warm but not pulling his toes downward. We'd rip several paper towels in half and lay them next to him in case he had a spurt of needing to clear out his lungs in the night. We'd place a towel on his head to keep the draft off, and park the van so he had breezes flowing through just right. And then we'd have his oxygen tanks right at hand for him to use as he chose.
By the time this particular night came around, he'd had enough scares of dying in his sleep that I'd left my bed in the house in order to lay on the floor of his van to doze beside him. Laurie and I had just gotten him all tucked in for the night, when, after a panic attack, he decided he'd try to sleep in the room on the ground floor of the house. I think he was trying to go in the house so that I would have a more comfortable place to sleep.
We got all his blankets and pillows and tanks moved into the bedroom and there was a nice breeze coming through the window for him. I was in a sleeping bag next to him on the floor and Laurie had returned to her own bed.
We never did get to sleep. Claustrophobia hit, followed by a panic attack due to lack of oxygen and his "nurturer" was not physically or emotionally in a place to nurture him--I was exhausted, and I'd already awakened Laurie once that night to move him inside. I don't think we were even in there an hour and he was begging me to move him back out to his van.
The clash was on. When I tried to soothe him by reminding him that the big window was there, that he really wasn't in a basement, that he was all right--he got whinier. And I felt myself get ornerier and more unwilling to move from my chosen position--I was at my wit's end. I felt like we'd all been scrambling for days trying to do the right thing by him--and yet it never was enough. And, honestly, Dad was NOT a demanding, cantankerous individual (even sick)--it was just everything all together.
Heck--the reason he was playing the whole manipulation game with us was because he couldn't stand seeing himself hurt us. It may seem cowardly, but I've done it myself. Oh well...
When I dug my feet in to stay, I watched him get up from the bed, grab his oxygen tank on wheels and start to head for the door. I followed him out of the room, leaned against the wall by the front door with my arms folded across my chest and then watched as he opened the door just enough to stick his nose outside and take a breath. Then he leaned out a bit more, slowly edging himself out the door, imploring me to let him sleep in his van. Good martyr that I am, I finally gave in completely--he had parked himself on a chair just outside the door and I had wrapped one of his blankets around him.
I hauled all of his bedding and pillows and paraphernalia back out to the van, tucked him in just so, my eyes sparking and my mouth grim--and as I turned to leave the van, he sighed a sigh of relief and said, "Thank you, Babe..." I rolled my eyes, walked across the yard to my car, went inside and bawled my eyes out.
The next day I told my brother-in-law, Terry, that I didn't think I could handle taking care of him much longer. I was ready to put him in a hospital right then and there. I had no desire to even look at him that morning. Laurie saw to his morning needs and as she did so, he told her sheepishly, "I went against Pen last night." By that afternoon, we'd made up and I was back to rubbing his feet.
In my cry out in the car, I'd realized my healing agenda with him--trying to force my will, my desires, upon his own. With that recognition, I at last chose to let the agenda go--and a transition took place that afternoon as I rubbed his feet. I realized I could love every part of him, unconditionally: the good, the bad, the light, the dark--all aspects and roles of him--and I could do so simply by touching his feet and not trying to change, or fix, one iota of him.
After that night, I no longer had Dad or myself on a pedestal of expectation--we were humans doing and being the best we knew how in the moment at hand. And regardless of the scenes being played out on the surface--messy or nice--I knew REAL LOVE was always there...
Thank you, Dad...I love you...
“Well done, my… Son?…I commend you to…The Father...” I’d move to the next spot on Dad’s foot signifying another body organ or part, and again, “Thank you, my…Son?…I commend you to The Father...”
And on and on, I haltingly went, repeating the strange, unrehearsed, unexpected lines over and over as I moved through Dad’s right foot, the tears streaming from my eyes, feeling as though I was touching every aspect, every moment of him through his feet—and loving him All, and thanking him for it All.
And my head was berating me and ridiculing me for every syllable that slipped from my lips. Son? He’s not your son! Who do you think you are? What’s Dad thinking of you—calling him ‘son’! You should be ashamed of yourself! What are others going to think of you? You’d better keep this whole deal to yourself. They’re going to think you’re crazy, delusional. You are crazy, you know…
But even in the midst of all those self-accusations, I kept feeling it—LOVE, pure and simple--but so vast, so deep, so warm and comforting, so powerful that nothing (what others might say or think of me) mattered.
Nothing mattered.
And so I continued on, “Well done…” until I completed his first foot, looked up and saw that his eyes were closed. I suddenly felt so exhausted all I could do was crawl gratefully into my sleeping bag on the tiny bed in the camper a couple of feet away from him, and close my own eyes.
I awoke a couple hours later from a solid sleep-state, saw it was five in the morning, that Dad was awake, though quiet and no longer moving except to use his eyes. I leaned over him to tell him I was going in the house to get Laurie.
Laurie! I’ve spent the last several years questioning and halfway chastising myself for not going to get her when Dad’s organs began shutting down and when he was going through the hallucinations, begging me to take him outside—it was so cold out—and I knew he was dying. The thought that I should go get her had occurred, but I chose not to.
Honestly, I had spent all the previous days trying to honor everyone else’s ideas, and, selfish as it may sound, I chose to walk this experience on my own—just Dad and me. I believe I needed to take all other’s desires out of the equation, because if another person had been present, I wouldn’t have allowed the previously quoted words and experience to come out. I would have defaulted into my old “little-sister Penny” role and kept who I really was hidden away (especially from myself) inside yet again.
So, Laurie, thank you. I know I probably disappointed you—even betrayed you—and I accept full responsibility for that choice.
Earlier that evening, Dad’s brother had called and asked me how Dad was doing and if he should come. I had spent all that afternoon running last minute errands in town, trying to take care of Dad’s business transactions, getting groceries, running into people who would ask me how he was doing. And I was aware that I knew this was heading into his last hours, but I didn’t feel at ease revealing that to other people—the words just weren’t there. I told his brother to listen to his own heart and make the choice when to come from there because I couldn’t answer him.
Dad was having a hard time swallowing and feeling really congested—I’m thinking it was a choked feeling. In the past couple of years, he’d had some Coke on hand, which he drank occasionally to help in moments like this—he said it helped him “cut the carbon.” That’s a carburetor mechanic talking—one of his many roles. So he asked me for some Coca-Cola that night as I was getting him ready for bed. We tried it, but even the Coke didn't seem to help.
The previous day the hospice nurse had left us some morphine for him to use— just in case he wanted it. Amy had come out to administer an enema for him that day so he was much more comfortable, yet his dignity was still intact with his daughters.
It was around ten o’clock, and I asked Dad if he wanted to try the stuff so he tried a bit—he had difficulty swallowing even that little bit of liquid--then told me to lay down and get some rest. As always in those nights with Dad, I was completely out the moment my head touched the pillow until I suddenly came to sometime around midnight.
Dad was awake and really having a difficult time breathing, he used the urinal all on his own (my back turned) and he was up and down between our two beds. I was opening windows, running the little heater full-blast at the same time—nothing was working. Then he started begging me to help him walk outside and I told him, “No, I can’t.” Little though he was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold him up, and it was so cold outside—it just didn’t make any sense to even try it.
In desperation, I heard myself say to him, “Dad—Jesus will come get you…” The words felt empty—like a lie. And as I said the words out loud, I thought to myself, Penny! You don’t know that! Don’t lie to him—don’t spout beliefs you’re not sure of! Don’t get his hopes up expecting something that you’re not convinced within yourself will happen.
As his organs were shutting down, the hallucinations started. He eventually surrendered and laid back down on his bed. The towel we’d placed on top of his head to keep his head and sinuses draft-free was now long gone. He reached over and grabbed a couple of paper towels that I’d torn in half for him earlier, and using both hands, he slapped them on the top of his head and they flapped there off the sides of his head like dog ears. He had such a comical expression on his face, along with the motion, that I felt a little betraying smile on my lips.
I would feel so ashamed of that smiling moment of mine, that it would haunt me for years later. I didn’t think it was the “right” thing to do in such a serious time. But, in looking back, I realize now that Dad would have done anything to get me to loosen up a bit—and especially so when things were so serious. He was known for making himself the butt of his own jokes in order to put another at ease. And I really did need a good laugh right about then.
I think it was somewhere around two in the morning when I asked Dad if he wanted me to rub his feet. He nodded his consent, and so began our blessing of all of him. A couple months later, I was watching a TV drama where a priest showed up at the scene of an accident and said the very same words I’d spoken over and over again through my dad’s feet—it was a last rites ritual. I’ve never attended a church of any kind often enough to have known to say those words—I’m not a member of any organized religion.
The next morning, I went in the house and woke Laurie. She came out and lovingly asked Dad if he wanted us to call our brothers home to see him, and he said yes. So the phone calls were made and people began arriving. A couple of our brothers lived and worked a good three hours away, and one of them had just become a proud new dad just the day before—so each of his family members took turns sitting with him on their own throughout the day.
I pretty much felt like I’d had my time with him in the night—but at one point when there were only a few of us present yet in the late morning I suddenly had the thought occur that I’d only blessed his right foot. I hadn’t done the left foot--the one where the heart point is—and it seemed so important that I complete fully what I’d started. So I slipped into the camper alone and I explained to Dad that I felt I needed to finish his feet. I pulled up the sleeping bag roll that I used as my stool and I blessed all the points on his left foot.
But that still wasn’t seemingly enough. I felt myself drawn to stand up, walk up beside him and place my hand on his heart, and whisper the blessing. In that moment, he took a great gasp of air—and fearing I had somehow hurt him, I whispered, “I’m sorry, Dad.” And I bolted out the door.
Now, I didn’t know that there was a setting on the oxygen tanks where I could have put it on automatic for Dad that previous night when he was having so much difficulty breathing—basically suffocating. Had either of us known that, we would have done it. My brother Steve made us aware of it when he arrived that last morning—so Dad had oxygen then when I was doing the last blessing, but he wasn’t noticeably breathing. He was in nearly a coma state—but a conscious one where he was still able to communicate with loved ones when he chose to. He literally took a deep inhale of air when I touched him.
Months later, I would be reading one of my books from my massage therapy course. A nurse who worked with terminally ill patients said she often felt intuitively drawn to place her hand on the heart of the one who was passing. She said it seemingly gave them a burst of extra energy that enabled them to stay present long enough to take care of things, so their lives weren’t left with unfinished business. My youngest brother was the last sibling to arrive that day. He got there sometime between seven and eight that evening and he was bearing a picture of his newborn son to show his dad. Dad actually took a close look at the picture—and then peacefully left his body for good sometime shortly thereafter.
Three or four months later, I would read online that if you truly wanted to begin to understand your own self, go be with someone you loved who was in the midst of dying. No one could have spoken words that resonated more deeply with me than those. Things happened in those last days and hours and minutes with Dad that changed me forever—or at least, made me aware that there were things inside of me that were eternal—unchanging, just unrecognized or unacknowledged by me before.
This is only a part of the story…but it’s enough for now…
Thank you, Dad. I love you…SO MUCH!
It was all for me...
Contrary to what my Little Human ego (AKA, God’s Puppet on a Destined String) would have me believe, while trying to save face when she realized I didn't listen to her--I really didn't do, or say, anything that “saved” or “fixed things” for my dad in our last moments together. He didn't need fixing or saving. It was all for me.
Dad’s life was not my responsibility. I walked beside him and with him as far as I could go and not literally join him in leaving—but the choices surrounding his life and death were all his to be made.
When I take a moment, get really quiet, and feel and consider everything that those last moments with my beloved dad meant to me: Well, I wanted him to simply know how deeply I’d been touched by his presence in my life. I’d learned, and I am still learning, so much about myself through EVERY SINGLE MOMENT of our relationship. I wanted him to know as we parted, that I celebrated him--I celebrated us—our dance.
And all that I said and did in those last moments, I needed to express for my own sense of authenticity--for my own peace of heart and mind.
I was operating on the belief I had then, as I still have now: You don’t part from someone without making sure they know how much you love, honor and appreciate all that they have been and are…for YOU!!!
I remember standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shortly after Dad had left our presence for good, and I gazed into eyes and a reflection that felt so different, so deep and wavering, but with a bit of a sense of a glow, a luminosity. I’d moved something intrinsic deep within myself. I wasn’t Penny anymore. All her stories and previous beliefs about life didn’t seem to matter anymore. I didn’t know who I was.
In those final moments with Dad, religious teachings and beliefs, political ideas, business practices, even family and friend issues just flew out the window—none of it mattered or had any bearing.
I KNEW two things—I loved him and I was thankful for him—and that was all that mattered…
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My Last Waltz with Dad
With Love, Mom