It's October and the year is slowly dying.  So is my father, the victim of lung cancer at 88 after a lifetime of smoking. He is at home, visited by hospice nurses, with a 24/7 home health care aide named Ted who is from Poland and has a nearly unintelligible accent.  He seems to be a nice enough fellow.

The day began with a sun shower, with light raindrops like tears falling from a blue sky with absurdly puffy white clouds.  Orange and yellow leaves were falling everywhere.
The rain stopped, and the weather became extremely cold.  Curtiss and I arrived at Dad's house a little before 4 pm.

The sofa had been moved to the opposite side of the room and in its place was a hospital bed in which my father lay like a fragile broken doll.  He had shrunk to half the size he'd been only two weeks ago.  Lying on his back, he had a tube running from his nose to an oxygen tank which quietly whooshed, the only sound in a dark and silent room.  His eyes were barely open, closing to narrow slits.  His breath was labored when we arrived, but became quieter and more even.  His upper dentures had been removed, and in combination with the morphine and tranquilizers he was getting made it impossible for him to speak.  He was able to nod or shake his head in response to yes or no questions.  He tried to embrace me once and seemed glad that I was there (though unsmiling)  At times he seemed to be making an attempt to smile, as when Jerry told a "philosopher's joke."


Curtiss put some Bach on the stereo, Gould playing the WTC, and later some Haydn.  I wanted Dad to hear some of the music he loved.  Music also alleviated the unbearable silence of the room.  I tried to speak normally to Dad but found myself referring to him in the third person and apologizing--when someone is semi-conscious, you naturally fall into talking about him rather than to him.  I was sad for Jerry, his faithful friend who discussed philosophy with Dad every evening, and who now sat in quiet grief in a chair across the room, as if he couldn't bear to sit close to his dying friend.  I was sad for Joe Cary and later for Bill Moynihan, who were both trying unsuccessfully to hide their grief.

There was an odd smell, not pleasant, probably an antiseptic.  The smell of dying.  I still have it in my nostrils and clinging to my clothes.  It's hard to bear this odor--it's not overpowering, and I can't identify it, but I know that it will linger in that room after my father is gone, and it will pierce my heart with relentless persistence.

Tasha is devastated.  We embraced when I went to the store.  This young woman has a close friendship with my father and is finding his illness unbearable.  She's not sure she will be able to sleep in the house after he is gone, but mournfully observes that she has nowhere else to go.  We have appointed Tasha the steward of Dad's house--we are grateful for the loving care she provided until hospice took over.  She is an exceptional young woman and I am glad to be able to provide her with a rent-free place to live.

Aunt Joan is supporting me over the phone and saying that I am the "greatest" for handling everything.  I have power of attorney, and I often wish that my father had not bestowed it upon me because of the sheer amount of onerous responsibility it entails.
I have been hearing Joan's voice in my head all day telling me what to do next--it's almost like telepathy.  On the phone, she advises me to go outside and take a walk, get some fresh air.  She apologizes for not being there with me--it's only because her doctor has said that she is not allowed to fly.  She is not one to show her pain to others--I know she needs to talk to me, which is how she grieves.  We have always understood one another without having to say a word: two Aquarian women, very alike in many ways, as an aunt is like her niece, even physically, but very unlike in others--still, we know each others' minds and always have.

Curtiss has been crying from time to time and is ashamed; I told him that crying is appropriate and he should cry all he needs to without worrying about incurring my displeasure (I am a no-crying-in-baseball person, unfortunately, and I tend to regard tears as a sign of weakness even though they are not.) I cannot normally cry in the presence of others, but today a tear slipped down my nose as I held my father's pinched hand, blue from broken veins where many IVs had been inserted.

When I went outdoors for a walk around the grounds,  I sought out a tree that I used to climb as a child.  It still stands with its huge branches like arms extended, alongside the moss-covered ancient stone wall.  I climbed onto the wall, put my arms around the branches, and allowed some tears to fall where there was no one to see but the birds and the neighbor's barking dog.

It seems very cruel of Nature to produce such a beautiful fall day with its slanting late afternoon sunlight, just as though my father were not on his deathbed.  It seems strange that life around me continues as usual, unaware that another old man is about to leave this world.  There are, after all, thousands of old men the world over dying at this very moment.  There are thousands of daughters going through the agony I am now experiencing.  The experience of dying and of being a survivor is universal, and of course this thought provides no comfort.  No thoughts are providing comfort.  Deathbed scenes from literature keep flashing into my mind: little Nell from Old Curiosity Shop, Barkis ("Barkis is willin'") from David Copperfield, little Paul from Dombey and Son (Dickens was a master of the deathbed scene) and of course Beth from Little Women.  Deathbed scenes in books are, as it turns out, quite unreal.  There are no heroics, no inspiring last words.  Only the gasps of a soul struggling to keep a failing body alive.

I believe that my father is trying to stay alive until after my brother Joe arrives tomorrow.
I have heard it said many times that a dying person will wait until all the grieving survivors leave his bedside, and then let go with relief, as though dying can only be safely accomplished when one is alone.  Crying alone, dying alone: connected, perhaps.

It would be lovely to be cared for right now.  To be getting a massage, somewhere far away from my father's sickbed, to be annointed with fragrant oil, to be wrapped in sweet-smelling warm blankets, to be served tea and scones on a silver tray.  Lovely to be in bed with my cat lying next to me, silently faithful like a dog.  I must allow people to care for me, but I am not good at allowing this.  I am not good at allowing anything.  I want to control, take charge of everything, even death.  I want to command the angel of death to leave my father's house until my brother has said farewell.  But there is nothing like death to remind us how powerless we really are.