Midnight came with Chinese fireworks pretending to be an artillery barrage. The attack was sudden and prolonged, filling the night with thunder and whines. Our forces have successfully defeated the year yet again, it seems. A hollow victory at best. Time remains undefeated.
Dad doesn’t have his hearing aids in. There’s no indication he can hear the cacophony outside, but I am relieved when it ends nonetheless.
It is 30 minutes into the first day of 2025 and my father is no more than 2 feet from me working through the last steps of his life.
The air pulses with the sound of an O2 tank. A low, industrial hum punctuated by a “ooh-aah”. It is impossible to drown out or ignore.
The gurgle in his throat. The rattle in his chest. They make themselves known and heard regardless of the fact that he no longer can.
I drift in and out – waking any time there’s any long pause in his breathing. Beat, beat, gurgle, breath. I raise my finger in time. I go away again when I have tracked the gap and measured it against the last one. In and out I drift back in synch with reality in time to see him lift his fists to his head, eyes closed tight and determined. I can’t parse what action he’s trying to complete. But I move closer to his bedside to hold his hand and stroke his forehead. I tell him it’s alright. I’m here. It’s okay. You can rest, Dad. You can rest now.
A few times he keeps his arm up, his fingers clasped around mine with just an echo of the strength he used to command. He tries to bring his other hand over atop mine. He wants to get up. To sit up. To be off the bed. He can’t tell me this, but I know it. He doesn’t have the strength to swing his legs over the side of the bed. He cannot navigate around the bedrails, and if he could – His legs can’t support him any longer.
His eyes stay closed. I tell him to lay back. Relax, Dad. I’m here. We’re going to be okay. It’s okay to rest now. The tension in his grip lessens. He settles against the mattress and pillow. He is still save the ragged breaths. I don’t know that it can be called rest.
It is October of 2014, and I’m in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
It is January of 2025, and I’m in Haymarket, Virginia.
I don’t know where or when Dad is. It is certainly not here. But I know this:
There is a hospital bed in a family room. There is a machine loudly producing oxygen. There is liquid morphine. Liquid Xanax. There is me. There is my brother. There is cancer in the air. It is in someone who made us. Very soon, one of my parents will be released from this place.
It is different and it is exactly the same.
