Musings from Death Watch

Outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1/28/02
I'm writing from a hospital room at Holy Redeemer. It's 11:15 pm. My 67 year-old father lays in a bed, his body slowing from MS, his legs immobile and cancer seeping every where. After two falls that cracked his legs bones in December, it became clear that something was not right. Tests revealed bone cancer. Our plans for Christmas were changed and my entire family celebrated with him in the hospital. Now, one month and one desperate phone call later, I have arrived with what everyone believes will be his final moments. I flew up from Orlando for the week.
I take the night shifts. 9 or 10 pm to 5-6-7:00 am. I like this shift more. The days have too many people squeezing into one place, all trying to do the same thing. I like the quiet. The peacefulness. I've enjoyed the moments my dad and I share at 2:00 am, shifting pillows over his aching, cancer-filled shoulders, massaging feet he cannot feel, smiling at him as he wakes up, looks around, sees me, then falls back to sleep. My presence, it seems, gives him comfort. I pray for him as morning comes, hoping he'll see another morning or, better yet, enjoy the morning without pain.
There are moments of fear too. Sudden coughing that is more like gasping. Low guttural groans that could fill a Halloween audio tape. Looking up and seeing his chest not moving, then realizing he is in on the down breath. An inhale brings sudden relief. The position of his head and the loosely hung jaw look more like a scream. It's probably the way his body feels. Fifty times a night I look up and think "he's dead." So far, all false alarms.
I feel sorry for the doctors. Cancer for these white-smocked supermen is kryptonite. It has to be frustrating. All those medicines, all those treatments, all those big machines, all those classes, but these little cell eaters turn everything they learned into mush. How many times, I wonder, has this little Pakistani doctor with the unpronounceable name broken the bad news? But he does it so softly. So softly it floats down like a feather. You barely know that he's just said, "Your father is dying and there's nothing we can do."
Time is running out for my dad. He probably won't be alive by my birthday in April. We're all thrilled it didn't happen on my parent's 44th anniversary last Friday. A holiday would be bad. I try to imagine what it would feel like to only have weeks, maybe a couple months to live. I think the news finally set in today for him. We've told him about five times that there will be no chemo, which is really saying, there is no more medical hope. He seemed to give up upon hearing it, truly hearing it, today. His face dropped. He stared off into the distance with a faraway, frightened look as if he spotted the cloaked one entering the room with a sickle. Now he falls asleep as you talk to him. Keeping eyelids open is like holding fifty pound weights over your head.
I sit here and try to remember a time when he walked. Those memories are hard to muster. I wish I had taken more pictures of him. I regret not knowing him better. I'm angry that he didn't share more with me. I'm sorry I've waited so long to show my love for him by staying up all night. His request for a sip of water seems so minor, but right now it's like rescuing a dying man in a barren desert. I'm happy to help. I'm powerless to do more. This morning as I left around 5 am, he blessed me. He took my hand and looked me in the eyes and said, "Bless your family and your beautiful wife and your wonderful kids." I held back tears. Staying up late with him is worth it.
I've seen a range of emotion in only five days: tremendous pain, courage, perseverance, family love, sacrifice, faith, hope, disgust, surrender, tears, determination. Much of it from my dad, a normally inexpressive man. It makes me wonder, can any good come from a bad situation? My image of him has widened. Some of it I wish to forget. Much I'll never forget. Either way, I know a different man after this. A more memorable one.
I fear that moment when I look up and see him dead. I wish for it, then again I don't. Fifteen years of struggling with colon cancer, MS, lung cancer, now bone cancer is about to end. As I head home on Wednesday, every phone ring will signal his death. I'll hate that phone.
Everyone faces death at some time. We are not immune. It's how we face it that will differ. Some loved ones die quickly, others take a slow, agonizing tumble. I've debated the pros and cons of both and I've come to the conclusion that fast is better if the dying one has lived life as if every day is the last. They depart with no regrets. No trail of broken relationships. A heart full of love. The kind of person who expresses his feelings openly so everyone knows where they stand with him. A slow death is better when things need to be said. For me, slow works. I know him better because of the final moments of his life.
As I sit here looking at my dad, I try to think his thoughts. That is impossible, but I take this opportunity to wonder what thoughts I will have on my death bed. One thought I don't want is regret. "I should have... Why didn't I... I'll never..." Rehashing the dreams that I never pursued. Wishing I had told my wife and kids I loved them more. Kicking myself for not reading that book. Realizing I never took that trip I wanted. Adding up all the minutes I wasted.
Death is more real to me than ever and in the process life is more real too. I can't imagine how one faces it without the hope of eternal life in God's presence. That is truly tragic.
Post script
As feared, my father passed away on a holiday. Valentine's Day, February 14, 2002. His funeral landed on our observance of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln's birthday, February 18, 2002. A double whammy. Many believed those dates would become cruel reminders of his death. I guess it depends on how you see it.
From now on, I'll remember how much I loved him on Valentine's Day and on Washington/Lincoln's birthday I'll honor him more than a great president. Now those dates take on more meaning than ever before. I guess it's all how you look at it.

Airlines Discriminate Against the Height-Challenged

With the recent announcement of JetBlue charging extra for leg room, following in the footsteps of United, I want to cry "discrimination"!
There I said it. I used the "D" word.
As someone who is 6 foot 6 six, I cannot fit comfortably in an airline seat. Yes, I'm height challenged. I was born this way. It was not my choice. As the prodigy of a 6 foot 7 inch father of German descent, whose parents were above average in height, I feel charging extra for legroom borders on discrimination!
What if airlines charged extra to people who were Bulgarian, or blond, or who stuttered or had one eye…or who were all four of those things. There would be outrage. Especially from the one-eyed, stuttering blonde Bulgarians!
Now, tall people cannot help being tall. Why should we pay extra for our physical challenge? Doesn't that make us handicapped?
I tried that angle once. It didn't work.
"We do not let handicapped people sit in the emergency aisle. If you are handicapped, as you say, then you must sit elsewhere."
But I'm not handicapped! I'm a strong man. I can rip that door off the hinges in the case of an evacuation and ably lead people to safety.
Instead, my safety and fate rests in the hands of whoever has an extra $70 to spend. I've seen the elderly and the non-English speaking in the emergency row before. Would you rather have a 98 year old Portuguese grandmother sitting four inches from your evacuation out of a burning plane or a 40-something 6 foot 6 inch man who can bench press 200 pounds (on a good day)?
I thought you would.
Now some consider leg room on airlines a luxury. I understand that. It's like a first class seat without the croissants and champagne. For me, it's a necessity.
My legs fit so snugly in the seat that the person in front of me cannot lean back. My knees prohibit it. They'll force their seat back, but it then becomes a battle of the wills, my knees usually coming up the loser.
I think there should be a cut-out standing by the check-in counter, like the ones by the rides at amusement parks. Instead it would be a pilot, holding his hand above his head, saying "You must be over this height to get whatever seat you want."
Airlines…realize what you are doing. You are discriminating against the very tall people who have made this world what it is today: Conan O'Brien, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Michael Crichton, Brad Garrett, Andre the Giant and Goliath from the Bible.
Don't hate us because we're tall.

Have a Dusterbuster Christmas
In February of 1988, a month before our wedding, I lost my job, sending our finances into a tailspin. Four months later, my wife announced that we were pregnant. Great-pregnant and poor, what a perfect combination for marital bliss!
That December, we sat in our apartment, with a plastic "Charlie Brown" tree drooping in the corner, my wife plump and uncomfortable, our pockets empty, but our hearts full of love and Christmas cheer, wondering what can we give each other for Christmas.
Thankfully our drawers and cabinets were full of wedding presents, still unused and in their packages. We had place settings fit for visiting dignitaries, but only enough money to serve them hot dogs, macaroni and cheese.
When it came to a gift exchange, there was one gift that we really wanted that no one had given us-a Black and Decker Dustbuster. Why a Dustbuster? Maybe it was from all the cracker crumbs my wife was leaving to help curb her morning sickness or possibly it was our vacuum-challenged nature that saw pulling out an entire vacuum as strenuous as building an Egyptian pyramid.
Scrapping together $25.00 dollars, we decided to invest in a Dustbuster. Barbie wrapped it up nicely and we set it under the tree. Christmas morning, we excitedly rushed to our present. After passing it back and forth, each of us tearing off a piece to share in the "unwrapping," we faked our surprise and thanked each other profusely, saying such things as "How did you know" and "It's what I always wanted." It was a wonderful time.
Before throwing out the box, I cut off the box top and put it in with our decorations for next year. I knew this Christmas would be significant, showing us that we could enjoy Christmas without a truckload of presents.
No Christmas since then has been as financially strapped, but we have made that box top into an ornament and place it on our tree every year, reminding us of that Dustbuster Christmas.