"I'm Not Going Back"

I didn't realize February would be the month that claimed both of my parents - my mother on Valentine's Day 11 years ago, and my father just a year ago, from February 19 to the end of the month. He actually passed in the wee hours as March 1 was dawning - on one of my sister's birthdays, to her great dismay - but he did all the hard work of dying before then.

I'm still coming to terms with a few things, so I guess if you're reading this you're going to work through them with me.

You see, my father chose to die. Sure, he was 93. Yes, he had a number of health issues, any one of which might have flared up and ended his life in due course. And while I saw a steadily declining man, I also saw someone in full control of his mental faculties, who read the paper cover to cover every day, who still loved a great joke, who got excited about going to McDonald's and getting a free senior coffee, who couldn't wait for his mail to come and paid his own bills.

He even maddeningly offered me navigation ("get in the left lane - now!") every time I drove him to dialysis three times a week.

Dialysis. In the end, that was the method of choice to end his life. Or rather, the denial of it. He had it Monday-Wednesday-Friday for more than a decade, for four hours at a time. And last year, on February 19 - a Tuesday - he said, "I'm not going back."

"You know what this means, Dad? You want to die?" I didn't want him to know I was about to cry. And I was surprised he was setting this in motion. My father was completely terrified of dying. I always hoped he'd be one of those lucky people who drifted off in his sleep.  

"Yes, I know. Call the girls." I called my three sisters, rallying the troops from California and Arizona and right here in Maryland. Then I called hospice to get someone to come in and teach us how to help him pass on.

The next two weeks were mostly a blur.  At first, he was Dad - able to joke and talk and eat a little, and sit at the dining room table like he always did. Then the constant itching set in - part of the dying process when his body wasn't being cleaned - and he could only sit in his recliner, and in eight days he was bedridden, mostly unresponsive, struggling to breathe, and still trying to scratch. My sisters and I took turns scratching him when his hands feebly wandered over the itchy parts, his arms, his legs, his stomach. We measured his deathbed meds and tried to put oxygen on him and did whatever we could to open the door wide to the next world so he could walk through it and leave us behind.

We were told his skin might smell like ammonia as the toxins grew in his body - it never did. We were also told by his doctors, long before he chose this, that stopping dialysis was a peaceful way to go, that he would just drift away, but that was a lie, a lie that my father clung to when he pulled the dialysis plug. The hospice nurses said that not many people get those tranquil deaths when they stop dialysis. Every morning near the end, my father would wake up and realize he was still here, and with his eyes still shut, call out to himself "Why can't you just die?" It was hard to be him, and hard to be us. All those times I could help him before, and I could do nothing now but sit and tell him he'd been a good father and beg God silently to give him what he wanted. A way out.

I wasn't sure earlier why I started writing this, but now I am. Two things. First, I am worried I didn't do enough for my father while he was alive. Please - don't rush to reassure me. I was a good daughter. A great daughter, even. I know I did my very best. But now that I am rested and not harried from working and his care, now that I have the gift of time I didn't have before, I think about so many things I could have done to make him happier. So I say to you, dear reader, if you are still so fortunate to have one or both parents, do it all. Throw your fatigue out the window, and think of everything you can to love them better and better.

Second, I am awed at my father's courage. Because I knew how very much he feared death, to have beckoned it to come and get him was an act of phenomenal bravery. I hope I have some of that Joseph Brienza heroism in me.

And how funny - I just realized as I was writing the thoughts above that I chose the word "courage" to live by this year. I even have it engraved on a silver bracelet I wear next to my watch. Maybe he steered me toward that word. He never failed to tell me to get in that left lane when I was taking him to dialysis. It would be just like my father to tell me what direction to take now, too.

© 2020 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Robert Edwards

I had a doctor's appointment this morning. It was in a building just 20 minutes from my home; four floors up from the lobby by elevator. I was the first patient, and they took me immediately. I was in and out in 30 minutes. 

I left my house at 7:45; I would have been home by 9:15 even if I stopped to refuel. But I took a little detour.

When I rode the elevator back down to the lobby, as the doors opened, I saw a man grappling with his wheelchair. He was quite literally inching toward me, his feet useless to help him push forward, and his arms only able to make small movements. "Don't worry, I'll hold it," I said, and when he got close I stepped out, one hand over the electric eye so the door wouldn't shut, and one hand lifting chair and man just enough to make it over the threshold. He couldn't have weighed more than 90 pounds. "What floor?  I'll take you up and get you out," I said.

"Two," he said. "Thank you. So much."

"Oh, sure," I said. This was an easy gift for me to give. I could cover the ground in minutes. Based on what I'd witnessed before, it would have taken ages to travel 20 feet on his own.

I noticed his hair and clothes were dirty, but his sneakers - white ones - were spotless. Of course. He doesn't walk in them. Perhaps he just has someone put them on when he has to leave the house. We reached the second floor, and he said, "My doctor is down the hall."

So I pushed him forward, staring down at the way his hair separated in waves because it was a little greasy, and wondering if he had someone to help him get ready for this appointment; if he took a Metro Access service bus to get here, like the one I investigated for my father but decided was too impersonal for him. I'm no stranger to wheelchairs - my mother was in one for years before she passed - and when we reached the door, I knew it would be easiest to take him in backwards. I leaned down so he could hear me and said, "What's your name? I'll sign you in."

"Robert Edwards." He seemed so small, so solitary. It's been almost a year since my father died, and I know this helplessness. I watched my father bend under the enormity of it, day after day. And he was one of the lucky ones; he had a family member as caretaker and companion. It's hard to be alone and old and weak and sick. Or any one of those things.

I put on my best cheerful voice and said to the two women behind the glass, "Look! I found one of your patients in the elevator! Mr. Robert Edwards is in the house!" They looked up and barely glanced at him, and didn't crack a smile for me, either. No smile! After I was so jocular! I'm not used to being resisted like that. And I hated leaving Robert to the mercy of these joyless women, but I pushed down the guilt because, as I often say to others, we can't save everyone.

"You okay now, Robert?" I asked. He nodded, and I said, ridiculously, "Okay - have a nice day."

A nice day.

I think it's been a very long time since Robert had a nice day. But I sure hope he had a kind doctor, and someone to bring him back down the hall and into the elevator and back to the lobby. He deserves that.

© 2020 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie