Wings and Prayers

Image reprinted with permission by the artist, Sam Zimmerman

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.  What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion

When I brought my father to my home to die, I decided to keep a journal.  I knew it would be a profound event in my life, and that I should document it along the way.  That I would get too lost in the process to commit anything to memory, that later, I would need to write about the experience, and I would not be able to trust my memory.  And as I sit down now, seven months later, I am glad I did, because while the pain is still fresh, time has dulled the sharp edges.  When I made the decision to care for my dad at home, I had absolutely no idea what was in store.  No doctor, hospice pamphlet, or acquaintances who have had similar experiences can prepare you for the rollercoaster you are about to board, and the toll it will take on you emotionally, physically.  How it will tear holes in the fabric of your relationships with family, the strain it will put on your marriage, how it can cost you your job, unless you are self-employed, and there is nobody to fire you but your customers.

The legal pads sit in a stack beside me on the desk.  I have not opened them since my last entry, a week after he died.  I have only touched them once, to move them from my bedside table, where they sat for a couple of months, buried under a pile of unread books and magazines.  One day, a few months after he died, I picked them up while tidying my room. It was as if they burned my hand.  Too soon.  They were deposited on a bookshelf, where they could keep my thoughts locked away, until it was safe for me to experience them again.

I usually have a purpose when I write; a theme, a lesson.  This time, the theme won’t be revealed, even to me, until I finish.  I know my story is one of rage, isolation, fear, helplessness, bone-deep fatigue, soul-crushing sorrow, and an emptiness that feels like nothing I have ever felt before.  I also know that it is a story of love, devotion, sacrifice, spirituality, a connection with nature, and above all, hope.  If nothing else, maybe it will help someone decide if they can take on the care of someone who is dying, a little primer about the things nobody actually tells you ahead of time.  Rather than read all the entries ahead, I intend to transcribe them as I go, to preserve the emotion of each entry.  Though, like I said before, time has dulled the sharp edges, and we now know how the story ends.  Watching a loved one die brings out the worst in people, and the best.  I know I was guilty of the worst, and I lost the popularity contest quite soon after I took charge of how my father would die.  I hope it also brought out my best, because I know it took all I had, and then some.

This story is mine; it is from my view point, about my feelings. While I tried very hard to understand the feelings of my father, I am not sure that was possible. I also know this experience had a deep impact on everyone around us, and while I was not blind to it then, nor am I now, the fact is, there was no energy available to worry about the feelings of others. My only duties were to my father, and I could only fulfill those duties if I myself didn’t drown. So if it seems that my journal comes across as a bit selfish, that judgment is probably not wrong. Other people are free to tell their own stories. As for me, I felt at times that I was close to drowning; my nose just above the surface of the water, and under the surface, legs treading water slowly, rhythmically, unconsciously.

This is my story…

April 26, 2021.  (This is not an entry in my journal, but in hindsight, it should have been the first one.)

Dad is in the hospital.  There have been dark days, but he seems to be coming out of it.  He has regained his cognition, and some strength.  He is being treated for the bedsore with the strongest antibiotic they have available. I go to Swedish every day to visit.  I have been with him nearly every day since February 14, at one hospital or another, forcing my way in, using one strategy or another.  I am only working a few hours a day.  Today was unseasonably warm, so when I got home, I worked in the yard for a short while.  As the dusk was gathering, I heard a strange bird call, one that I had been hearing from a distance late at night for a few weeks, and thought it may be an owl.  This time, it was very close, so I followed the sound.  I walked up to the road, and perched above me on the power line, was a pygmy owl.  I sat down under it, and it called to me softly for the next twenty minutes, telling me a story.  Pohhh-po-po-po-po-po.  Over and over, turning its head down periodically, to look down at me.  When the story was over, it flew off into the dark.  I got up, stiff from the cold, and went inside, excited for my first sighting, and delighted that I had finally identified the late night caller.

May 13, 2021.

I am curled under a blanket on the deck, watching the sliver crescent of the moon, two days in from new moon.  I watch the sky move from pink to dusky purple to dark, wondering if my father will live to see the full moon.  I can’t stop crying, have been unable to stop all day, since the doctor informed me that it was time to consider hospice.  I often wonder, at every full moon, really, how many full moons I have left in my own life.  There are only so many in a year, only so many years in a life.  The number of full moons is finite for each of us, we just don’t know the number.  I count the springs, the autumns, the summers, knowing each one enjoyed and treasured is one less I have left.  And for my father, his moon cycles are now sharply measured.

Earlier today, I was allowed to visit him in rehab, for the first time in a week.  I was dressed as if for a moon walk, and he was barely clothed, lying in bed, covers flung back.  So thin, so oblivious.  I asked him if I should open the shades, so he could see the leaves on the vine maple outside his window, and he agreed that would be nice.  I opened the shades, and the green poured in, filling the room with life.  He closed his eyes, and I watched quietly, as the shadows of the leaves dancing in the breeze outside played across his bed.  He slowly breathed, in and out.  We have discussed the doctor’s prognosis and advice: that he can no longer swallow, he is wasting away, that we should stop the IV meds, that he should go on hospice. But he is not ready to agree, wants to wait it out.   I am told privately by the doctor that he will be lucky to last another two weeks.  Tears soak my mask, my gown, fog up the face shield, as I understand that death is coming for him, whether we are ready or not.  His optimism slays me, his will to fight breaks my heart.  As I sit there, melting in my hazmat suit, under strict orders not to touch him, my determination of just two hours ago to not put him under the stress of another move dissolves.  He has been in seven different places in 13 weeks, and I don’t know how it will work yet, but I decide this will not be his last stop.  I will not let him die here.  Before I reach the car, I have made up my mind.  He is coming home with me.

May 15.

I’m up early, another beautiful day.  The first thought that comes to mind is “My dad is dying.”  I can’t stop the tears, though my eyes are still swollen from a day and night of crying, and I think how wasteful it is to put in a new pair of contact lenses.  They’ll be ruined by tomorrow, as a terrible day lies ahead, which I am dreading.  But I try to savor the morning, because I know it will be the last one, for some time, where death is not intruding.

I wonder what it will be like, living with my father, as he prepares to die.  Will I sit in the window seat beside his bed, while we watch the sunset together?  Will I put special rocks in his hands, that he will turn over and over, feeling their smoothness? Will he rub them like a genie rubs a bottle, evoking memories like incense?  Will he be able to see the hummingbirds at the feeder just outside his window?  I need to find some music to play – he loves classic hymns.  My sister was asked recently what our family rituals were surrounding death, and she answered that we have none.  Death has caused collapse and dysfunction in my family, and that was only in four deaths in almost 40 years.  It comes to me that it will be my job to create ritual, to put ceremony to passage, to set a new example for my family.  I don’t know if they will be more for me, or my father.  I must begin to gather stones.

Later:  No stone gathering has occurred, but doctors have been consulted, opinions have been pushed back, applications made, orders put in, papers signed, equipment ordered and delivered.  The living room has been rearranged, my newly delivered rugs rolled up and stored away, and the space looks as if it has been waiting for this hospital bed, to be tucked between the piano and the windows looking out to the water, the plants surrounding it like a forest glen.  I have been told hospice will take care of so much, but apparently not sheets.  I am to fend for myself for linens for this oddly sized mattress.  When I first walked into the house, after the hospital bed was delivered, I was afraid to look into the living room. I found that it does not scare me, the sight of this apparatus for death.  But now I sit outside again, happier in the fresh air and darkening sky.  I check in with the moon, and find it in place, as scheduled.  As if to reassure me, it lays down its light across the water, a shimmering tether between the moon and I.  It knows my wishes, but keeps the plan a secret, for now.  When we moved in, just over three months ago, the Big Dipper was hidden by the roof line, and Orion’s Belt was my focal spot in the sky.  Now, with the equinox approaching, the sky has shifted, and Orion’s Belt is sliding down under the horizon.  The Big Dipper emerges overhead, a welcome anchor in the sky.  The stars come on, one by one.  I can hardly keep my eyes open.  I need sleep.  Tomorrow will take all I have.

May 17.

Nothing has gone as planned.  I was up bright and early, making calls, getting no answers.  I go to the chiropractor, I need to be able to move.  I stop at three stores, still forget half of what I need.  More calls, more imploring, repeated use of “this is bullshit” and “this is utter bullshit”.  I am reserving “fucking bullshit” for emergency use.  I make it clear that we are on day four of discharge, and it will happen today.  I express how it cannot be overstated how upset I will be if he dies before I can get him home.  I agree to literal highway robbery while admins strangle themselves with red tape, trying to approve a six mile ambulance ride to my home.  One last phone call, in a dead calm voice, while I explain the backhanded trickery being played behind the backs of the care managers, and I am finally informed the ambulance will arrive in 30 minutes.  The ambulance drivers turn out to be the most caring and resourceful people I have met so far on this journey, and I am so grateful that I am moved to tears.  There has been much less crying today, too many details to work out, to many instructions to absorb.  A neighbor brings an unexpected and lovely container of begonias.  People who swore allegiance lose their step, and people who I didn’t expect to, step up.

Marc and the boys are on a prearranged trip, and I have the evening alone with Dad.  I have made a pot roast, thinking I will be feeding my visiting family, but I started it too late, and those who came by only stayed a short time, so I eat alone at 10:00.  As I am down to my last bite, Dad wakes up finally, asking for food.  I cut up the meat into baby size bites, and he eats two nibbles, a couple bites of potatoes, and a sip of protein drink.  I am glad to have gone to the trouble of cooking four pounds of roast, so that he could enjoy those two tiny bites.  After saying all day that he is lost, confused, overwhelmed, and telling the nurse that my name is Sharon, he finally seems to be alert.  He has not been to my new home since we moved in, but when he asks whose house we are in, I tell him it’s my in-law’s house, and he has been here before, for Christmas.  He has known for three years that we planned to move here, and when I explain there we’ve moved in now, he smiles, and as he looks around, I see he recognizes it.  Hobson wants to know who’s on the bed, so I lift him up, and he licks Dad’s arm gently, and Dad pets him and smiles.  After eating, he falls right back to sleep.  I sit quietly for an hour, watching him, taking in the sounds: his breathing, the rain and wind outside, the dryer running in the other room, the sounds of him digesting his small meal.  At midnight, I finally take a shower and go to bed, write for a while.  The wind is still pummeling the trees, the moonlight sparkles in the churned up surf, but it is warm and quiet inside.  I close my eyes, tuning my mind to any sound from downstairs, like a new mother, unsure if she’ll be able to hear the baby stir.

May 18.

I woke up early, even though there were not enough hours of sleep, too many interruptions.  At 4:30 in the morning, the dog barked, so I went down to investigate.  He was on the couch near Dad, who had flung off all blankets and sheets, and had managed to clock himself around on the bed, looked like a starfish, all arms and legs, dangling over the side of the bed.  His limbs were ice cold, but he was snoring away.  I managed to rotate him back, and get his arms and legs aboard, and tucked back in.  He was oblivious to it all.  Clearly, I have lost my new-mother spidey-sense, and the alert system is now left up to the dog.  I had heard a small bump in the night, but had chalked it up to the windstorm.  I had left some soft lights on, but they seemed harsh in the predawn hour.  Tonight, I will turn them off.  He needs to see the moonlight, coming across the water.  He has no reference for day or time.  Maybe the lunar cycle will guide him; we will track it, each of us, each hoping for different things.  Him, to not have too many more nights.  For me, selfishly wishing for a few more.

He was very out of it this morning, refusing food, but thirstily drinking pineapple-banana nectar.  I had feared he would make his exit today, my dead brother’s birthday.  Mt. St. Helens day.  His morning demeanor made me think it a possibility.  He can’t summon the strength to use a straw, he can’t swallow his pills.  He bites down on his antibiotic capsules, and his lips drip toxic blue.  He keeps hiding them under his tongue, unable to follow my simple commands to open wide.  The legs may have lost their strength, but the jaw is like a vice, and when he bites down on my finger, I feel it.  Worn down teeth are still sharp and hard.  I make a mental note to wear gloves when I feed him.  I don’t need MRSA on a cut finger.

I have an appointment at his bank, and I need to go to work for an hour, so I leave him with my mom.  My siblings come by for visits while I am out.  He’s talked today about his mother, calling for her, and saying there’s a large woman standing over him.  I hope he doesn’t mean me.  He told my sister that “Steve” shot at him.  The only time I know of that guns were drawn on him was the kitten in the woods story. (One of his favorite things to do was explore forest service roads, either by car or motorcycle. He happened once upon a group of hunters, who were priming their hunting dogs on a tiny kitten in a cage. When my dad approached and told them to give him the kitten, they drew their guns on him, and threatened his life. Decades later, he could not recall the story without weeping for the kitten that he had to leave behind, to a tragic end.)  He did serve in Japan in the Korean War, working on an airfield.  Why didn’t I ask more questions, when I still could?  I calculated today that in the last four months, I’ve only missed a handful of days with him, and any I did miss were COVID-demanded.  And we were together five days a week at work, for the last decade.  Yet there’s so little I really know.

He perked up this evening, ate some dinner, drank lots of orange juice.  We spent time talking about a few of his possessions from his apartment.  They’ve been packed and moved and unpacked three times in as many months.  A few items that were fixtures from my childhood home, a carved wood bear and a merganser, gifts from his brother, John, a wildlife photographer, gone many years ago from a rare cancer.  I showed him a huge agate, one that had spent decades on my grandmother’s windowsill, turned up by my grandfather’s plow on the family farm, nearly a century ago.  A few years ago, my 95 year old aunt had asked about it, and my dad said he would send it to her.  He brought a large agate to my office one day, and asked me to mail it to her.  It didn’t seem at the time like the right one, but I sent it anyway.  When we packed up his apartment recently, I found the right agate.  When I showed it to him tonight, he chuckled, as if he knew he had been caught, the baby brother trying to pull one over on his big sister.  It’s the size of an orange, and heavy.  His hands are too weak to hold it, and it keeps rolling out of his hands and down under the blankets.  I turn his bed so he can see the water, the sunset.  It’s not a spectacular one, but he seems happy enough to look.  I offer music, but he declines.  He informs me he would like my mother to be on the plane, so she can see the sign, and the number.  He can’t explain what sign, or what number, but I assure him she will be on the plane.

I try to give each visitor privacy, so they can tell him what they need to.  He told my sister , Bobbi, tonight “Tell Sue I’m sorry.”  He thinks he is disappointing me.  I’m not ready to tell him it’s okay to go.  I don’t believe he is ready to go yet, there are still things he is working out.   I believe I will know in my heart when the time is right to tell him it’s okay, that he’ll let me know when it’s time, and he’s ready.  In the meantime, I will keep risking bitten fingers, and give him the antibiotics, because that is what he asked of me, when he still could.

I think about the pygmy owl I saw at dusk, 24 nights ago.  I know the native legends about owl sightings, but then I just thought it was a lucky birding day.  I wonder now if the earlier calls were just the introduction, the invitation to be open, to listen.  That the personal encounter with the tiny messenger was the real lesson, the sign that this journey was approaching, and the instructions were being given.  I am glad now that I sat and listened, for as long as the owl was willing to speak.  The lesson may not have been understood by my conscious mind, but my subconscious mind surely tucked it away.  I believe that when the time comes, my soul will recall the lesson, and I will know what must be done, that I will recognize the sign, know the meaning of the number.

May 19.

Disappointment, all day, in all aspects of medicine.  Day Six since the doctor wrote the hospice order, and still no hospice visit.  Custom pressure relief boots from Swedish, stolen by the rehab center.  The assisted living facility destroyed his meds, which I now am out of.  Liars abound.  I’ve had to play bad cop all day, when What is to be calm, to be with Dad.

I have been called many things over the past few weeks, when he could not pull up my name: daughter, “tour runner”, “job-doer”, Sharon.  Today he told me “You’re the first.” He can call me whatever he wants, because when he looks at me, I can see he knows who I am, and he knows I love him, and he appreciates what I do.

His appetite is back.  Yogurt, smashed banana, full can of peach nectar.  Two bowls of ice cream, lots of OJ.  Potatoes, gravy, carrots, protein drink for dinner.  Today, he wanted to feed himself, hold the drinks.  That is an improvement.  I have come to realize that the rehab center was more focused on liability and shipping him off, when they told us he could not swallow.  He was wasting away because nobody wants to drink meatloaf shakes.

I am finding it very difficult to have a minute alone, to eat lunch before 4:00, drink enough, or any water, for that matter.  Leg cramps wake me nightly, the kind that make you jump out of bed in agony.  Tomorrow I will practice greater patience, and lower my expectations of others.  Marc always says my expectations are what get me into trouble.

Out of the blue, he announces it’s time for the Star Spangled Banner.  Maybe he hears the baseball game playing in the background.  He declines Marc’s offer to watch the game, but asks again for the song.  Marc pulls it up on his phone, and Dad holds the phone, listening, carefully studying the still image of the flag on the screen.

He was so happy to see Tina (our co-worker) today.  He asked later, “What about Bobbi?” I asked him if he saw her today, and he said no.  He keeps confusing her with me, and it bugs her.  I’ve been warned that he would get more alert once home, but it will be a trick.  There is much mouthing of silent words, repetitive arm and hand motions.  “What about Building 1?” he asks, moving his hands, as if signing documents.  He told Tina tonight, clear as day, “Well, tomorrow I should be able to get out of here.”  He means back to work, which he loves.  I was feeding him lunch today, and my mom was talking to him, and he interjected with “Well, folks, I’m ready to go home.”  A classic Pat saying, when the holiday meal is over, and he would rather go home and read the newspaper and rest, than be stuck visiting.  She interpreted it otherwise, like he was ready to go home to heaven.  I knew he was just tired of listening.

It’s 11:30 before I can slip outside to sit in the hot tub, and watch the clouds drift across the sky.  They eventually clear, and the quarter moon casts shadows of the rose bush across the deck.  The Big Dipper has moved into place above us, like a protective shield.  I revise my wish for my dad to make it to the full moon, and now hope for the next first quarter moon.  That would get him to his birthday, 92.  I reserve the right to revise my wish as many times as I choose.  Tonight, I’ve turned out all the lights, save for a faint up-light in the umbrella tree, which casts shadows on the ceiling, like a jungle.  Turned down just low enough to light the ceiling, so the moonlight won’t need to compete.  Dad calls out after midnight, saying he is confused.  Maybe it’s too dark.  I reassure him that he’s at my house, and I am here.  He goes right back to sleep.

At 1:00 am, when I went to check him, he said “Goood morning.”  Drawn out “good”, higher note than than the lower tone “morning”.  His standard greeting for all of my life.  I wish I had recorded it, to remember it always.  On Bobbi’s birthday, he was in the hospital, so I had him call her phone, so he could sing “Happy Birthday” to her, as he has always done for her, and Sherman.  She was able to record it.  He has never sung Happy Birthday to me, that I can remember, at least not as an adult.

Day by day, hour by hour, I feel more at peace, since I have stopped bulldozing everyone into trying to cure him.

May 20.

Hospice finally came today, a four hour visit.  Initial prognosis:  he has way more than two weeks left.  By the end of the visit, maybe two-plus weeks, maybe two months.  I am exhausted by the end of the visit, but I still have to go to work.  I procrastinate another hour, then go.  A task at the office that should take an hour takes three.  I am exhausted.  Two diaper changes on my own today.  My back is blown, and I have already been to the chiropractor twice this week.  I may need to go daily.  I can smell urine from ten feet away.  He had ravioli and ice cream for dinner, and was happy.  Sherman stayed until 10:00, and they had a nice visit.  Marc went up to bed, and I told him I would follow in a minute.  I got sucked into “The Exorcist”, and ate a pint of ice cream.  It’s 2:00 am now, and I don’t want to go to bed, because, Exorcist and ice cream.  I tidy up, give Dad a drink and an antibiotic pill, which he bites in half, and blows the powder all over his shirt.  We only had an 11-day supply, now one is wasted, and hospice has said no refills.  I debate on skipping the dose, or using one ahead.  I want no regrets, so I give him another.  He’s hot and flushed with the new air mattress, and too many blankets.  I open the window, pare down the bedding, and he settles in.  Me, I pace the deck, the living room, upstairs.  Watching the moonlight from each perch.  I can’t get enough, can’t stop looking.  I ask Dad if he can see it, shining on the water, but he is too groggy to look.  I tell him it can see him.  It follows me up the stairs, to bed, filling me with comfort and gratitude.  With the faith that there is a bigger place than my small house, than this moment in time.  Everything feels surreal, time is losing its meaning, or I’m losing my grip on it.  It seems like he has been here for months.  It’s been 80 hours.  The unknown of two weeks, two months, maybe the possibility of “graduating from hospice”.  I don’t know whether to hope or grieve, to fight or concede.  You can spend your own days living or dying, but spending your days with someone who is dying, but thinks he is living, is like being caught in limbo.

The hospice nurse asked me if I could smell infection, and I said no, knowing full well that if there was an odor, I would detect it.  The visual of his wound has been enough to buckle my knees.  I am grateful there is no smell, because it would do me in.  I can’t seem to get the urine smell out of my nose – it follows me, pungent with the acrid smell of the meds.  I guess I should be grateful for the smell: where there is no more urine, that means no more drinking, no more digestion, and death soon to follow.  Or so I have been told.  But defining “soon” is beginning to seem subjective.  I had been told that after he stops eating and drinking, it will be between one and seven days, but then today, I was told that could stretch to two months.

A hummingbird flew through the open window today, and landed on the branches I have tacked up in the corner, strung with lights, above Dad’s bed. It flitted around for a bit, going from branch to branch, then flew out the same way it came in. A scout, maybe?

I asked Sherman if he will be planning to watch Dad’s cremation with me, and he seemed horrified by the thought.

May 21.

I’ve been able to stay here all day, with only one interruption, by the bathing aide.  My mom and her companion, Greg, stopped by.

Dad wanted pencil and paper, but was too tired to write, so I took dictation.  He keeps talking about a small plane.  Here are my notes:  “It’s a small airplane.  This involves a message held in one of those…never mind, let’s forget it.  This has to do with a man, and the dead person lying there.  He’s been dead for years.  The former President.  The lady pointed and said ‘Hear all, hear all, we no longer have a President.’ It’s not going to be owned by a commercial group, I think this is all too relevant.  We still have out there two teams, each owning 50% of a football quarry.  They don’t intend to play football.  To combine with some sort of an entity that does not play football.”  I imagine his talk of the small plane refers to a bush plane he chartered, so he and Sherman could spread my Uncle John’s ashes in Alaska, in a particular valley that John had loved.  It was several years after John had died that my dad had the money for the trip and the charter.  Sherman remembers going, but no other details.

The eagles stand guard in the tree, politely looking the other way.  The praying mantises that I bought on Mother’s Day, during a lovely day of visiting gardens and nurseries on Bainbridge Island, remain hidden away in their egg cases.  I check every time I walk by.  I believe they are waiting to hatch at the moment I really need them to appear.

My in-laws continue weeding the yard, moving slowly in a circle around the house.  They “accidentally” cut irises and peonies, and leave them outside the door.  They, too, stand nearby, politely looking away, but waiting with me, nonetheless.

I showed Dad some gold I found stashed in his belongings, and I ask about the various items.  The little vial of large gold flakes suspended in fluid, he says are from Alaska, but he’s never been.  A glass locket with small gold pieces, more sand than gold.  Maybe from his mine, but he can’t remember.  A small gold nugget in a black velvet pouch.  He turns it over and over, dropping it repeatedly in the blankets.

He asks for juice often.  A few bites of cornbread with honey and butter, and applesauce for breakfast.  Dinner, a few bites of chicken noodle soup and sips of protein drink.  No lunch today.  The sun is out, so I sit on the deck, where I can see him, hear him, through the window.  I watch the water, the eagles.  The crow family caws, the Kingfisher drops by, the hummingbirds come every few minutes.  I can hear the waves as the tide changes, the sound of rocks tumbling gently in the surf.  Soon, the bunnies will be out. It is so peaceful here.  He seems so peaceful.

The animals, I can count on.  As for people, they continue to disappoint.

May 22.

I don’t really have words today.  Just to say that I finally sat down to read the hospice pamphlet, then I vomited. First the food, then a loud sob.  Then I felt okay.  Purging of the stomach, purging the blockage of emotion in my heart.

Food today:  Peanut butter/spinach smoothie, ice cream, ravioli, V8, OJ, protein drink, Kerns Nectar, water, chili, cornbread.  Tylenol.

The bushtit landed beside me, inches away, on the gnarled arm of the clematis that flanks the deck railing.  So small.  Not a flock, as usual, just one tiny bird.  Bushtits always seem to appear when my grief threatens to sink me.  They flutter, whisper psst psst psst, then fly away, taking my worries with them.  One small ambassador on the lightest of wings, come to take stock of the situation.

May 23.

These may be the golden hours, of which I have been forewarned.  He was awake most of the day.  We turned his bed away from the window, to face into the living room.  He read a magazine, glasses on.  He drank, he ate, we watched Yellowstone.  He kept asking us to turn it up.  Gambling, strippers, horses, fighting cowboys, the ranches of his dreams.  He was all about it, two full episodes.  Afterward, we reminisced about an epic family vacation, to a ranch in Libby, and he remembered things I didn’t.

He rejected drinks he had previously liked, asked for something “not related to this”.  He talked about not wanting anything that “leaned to the right, escaped to the right”.  It took us all day to figure out he was tired of straws.  He drank tea, and ate yogurt with mango, chicken noodle soup, sourdough bread with butter.  As for the peppermint tea with sugar and cream, he pronounced it as something he “wouldn’t order again”.  Ruben made him coffee, and he loved it.  He has always been a huge coffee drinker.  I was resistant to the coffee, thinking he would be up all night, and that meant I would be, too.

We looked at pictures on my phone of birds, bunnies, the video of sheep running among the fur seals that I took in New Zealand.  He was so engaged.  We watched the final round of the PGA Championship, and he recognized Phil Mickelson.  We talked about his sister, and he asked what her plan was for her broken back, and would I have to do a lot to settle her estate, when the time came.  It was a good day.  It reminded me that we made the right choice, bringing him to our home.

May 24.

Today, he never really snapped to.  Very sleepy all day, very disoriented.  No food until 6:30 pm.  Marc fed him macaroni and cheese, sliced bananas.  Later, cottage cheese, yogurt, blueberries.  He rejected green tea, and the chocolate protein drink, but drank black tea.  I had to work for a few hours.  The first hour I was gone, he said he needed to get to work, too, and kept asking Bobbi to take him.  When I got home, he asked again, and I said maybe tomorrow, but there was no signings scheduled.  He said he needed to check the atmosphere at the office, and look for his shoes.  I told him we would need a wheelchair, and the stairs would be a problem.  “Oh, the stairs…” he said.  Earlier today, he wanted to get out of bed, and kept insisting.  He cried a bit when I wouldn’t let him get out to go to the bathroom.  A few minutes later, he asked when would he be able to get out of bed, and I gently told him he would probably never get out of bed again.  The look on his face shattered my heart.  I find it hard to play along, to lie to him, but the truth feels way worse.  Prove me wrong, Dad, please.

One night until the full moon.  Six days of antibiotics left…

The praying mantises have yet to hatch.  The lady who sold them to me told me they’ll hatch when they are ready.  I told Marc my feeling that they were waiting for the day I will need them most.  Maybe they are watching the moon, too.

I went to bed at midnight, and every fifteen minutes, he called out.  I moved to the couch in the living room, and every ten minutes, he called for me.  I moved to the window seat, and laid down where he could see me.   At 1:30 am, six THC drops.

He began talking, nonsensical snippets.  “Messenger with instructions, not sure how to follow the instructions.  Urgent message.  Party in the garden, joy upstairs.  Need to go to the Bible place.”  Gibberish and mumbling for hours, then, at 4:00 am, as I am wrestling to change his diaper myself, he looks up at me, and clear as a bell, he says “This must be wearing you down terribly.”  I tell him it’s okay, I don’t mind.

I go out to the deck, to watch the moon come around the house, turn deep red, then set at 4:55.  My mother in-law is out on her deck, also watching the moon, and she calls to me from above. I have been so sure, during the night, that this would be it.  After the moon sets, he finally settles down, and we both try to sleep.

May 25.

The days are blurring together.  I worked a little today, in two separate stints. So busy.  Tina is a trooper.  Marc, as well.  He is taking the night shift, so I can sleep.  I’ve said goodnight to Dad, goodnight to the moon.  If I can wake to the alarm in four hours, I will watch the lunar eclipse.

I have ground down my front canine, and as I look at it in the mirror, the newly exposed angle glistens, accusing me of abuse.  I’ll try the night guard tonight.

May 26.

Too many hours required at work this week.  No choice, no control.  Becoming the story of my life, these days.

We had a nice, helpful meeting with the hospice chaplain.  For us, at least.  Dad outright dismissed him, mid-talk.  He’s not comfortable with it.  Who can blame him?  The nurse says that often, they know, but hide it from family.  I can see him doing that, to not disappoint.

The bird crowd is growing, and the animals are gathering around.  We’ve cleared the full moon.  Next hurdle: to stop or continue the antibiotics, after we run out on Sunday.

I need to start a food journal for him.  I am so tired, the tears are just below the surface, every minute, every day.

On another note, my husband is proving to be the very man I sensed he would become when we met, at barely 19. If I could have imagined then the unthinkable that we are living now, I would have put all my money on him, and I would have been right.

Dad asked if any bad people are coming to visit tonight.  I think he means the chaplain.

May 27-28.

End of the month, so busy at work.  I am forced to work ten or eleven hours a day.  I feel like a zombie, tears threaten to flood in and drown me.  Who knows how many mistakes I am making at work?  It terrifies me to be doing work in which consequences are not small, when I can barely function.  Marc is carrying the load, watching Dad, while trying to do his own work at the dining table.  Dad is pesky with Marc, constantly picking at his diaper, trying to get out of bed, rejecting all offered meals and drinks.  If we can all make it through Friday, there will be some relief, some rest, comparatively speaking.  Dashing home for diaper changes and chaplain visits has worn me out.  The switching of gears between work and caregiving is jamming my emotional transmission.  Leg cramps continue.  I think over-production of tears has sucked all the liquid from my muscles.  Extra magnesium equals diarrhea.  Grief equals diarrhea and cramps.

At night, I dream of white sheets.  The new sheets I have purchased, crisp, covering his body in drifts.  I have been told it’s okay to write on them, so there are notes on the upper corner, written in bold black sharpie. White sheets billow above my head, bright against the blue sky.  Billowing upward like sails from my outstretched arms, my hands holding tightly to the corners, fighting to tether the sails that want to fly away.

May 29.

It’s been a wonderful day.  Beautiful, warm, salty breeze all day.  His first day out of bed, in the wheelchair.  We wrap him up like a mummy and sit him on the deck.  He nibbles crackers, looks at the newspaper, though it’s an old one from April, left in his backpack.  The chair tilts back into a bed, and we have put the special cushion on it for his behind, for the bedsore.  He sleeps a good deal of the afternoon.  I move him around the table, clocking the day by the sun moving toward him.  It warms his feet under the blanket.  When I run out of room to move him, I scoot the umbrella and table, to keep his face out of the sun.  I spend the day sitting in the sun, watching him.  He tries to see the eagles in the tree, but has trouble locating them in the binoculars.  Later, when I pointed them out again, he asked if they are seals.  He corrected himself immediately, and said he wasn’t sure why he said that.  A few of the letters are the same, his brain is still piecing together the puzzle.  Sometimes, the pieces are just more jumbled.

It feels like a perfect day, and he is so happy to be outside.  If we are living every day, even as we are closer to dying every day, then this has been a good day of living.

May 30.

He’s groggy this morning, but he slept all night.  It’s warm out, but overcast.  I’m alone, Marc and Ruben went to collect Carter and move him out of the dorm, and home for the summer.  I changed Dad a couple of times on my own, which I am getting better at doing. He asks for coffee, again and again.  Food is not tasting good to him today.

While he sleeps, I sit outside.  The birds surround me.  I have feeders and dishes of seed and water everywhere.  They sing me a chorus: juncos, chickadees, finches.  The hummingbirds chirp and dive.  The crows, blue jays, a goldfinch and a downy woodpecker pay visits.  In the distance, I think I hear the pygmy owl, the short poh-popopo.  Or maybe I just imagine it.  Just in case, I go in to check if he’s still breathing.  The eagles and osprey put on an aerial show, with the crows as backup dancers.  A flock of doves fly by, in a lilting, loose formation.

Marc and the boys arrive home.  The boys set up a golf game in the yard, so we rolled Dad’s bed out to the deck.  We erect a forest of umbrellas over him.  He got a bit too much sun yesterday, despite my efforts to shield him.  Sunscreen today.  He watches the boys, and says this would be a good summer to play golf, “if only”.  He’s remarkably lucid today, asking when the New Zealanders will be together again.  He says “This is as good a time as any to call Mom”, so we do, and he reminds her about his mining equipment in her garage.

As he naps, a chickadee lands on his foot.  I check the praying mantis egg cases.  No sign of them yet.  Now I am convinced that they wait, for Dad to make his exit from his papery, dry body, before they escape from their papery, dry cocoons.  I sit on the deck, where he can see me if he opens his eyes.  There’s a million things I could be doing, but instead, I just sit where he can see me.  I watch a honeybee fluff its hair, stretching, resting up for flight.  I watch a crow fortify its nest.  I watch the wisteria grow, its tendrils creeping slowly toward me.

My sister has agreed to come and stay, while we go to a movie.  Our first break in two weeks.  Her window of available time shrinks with every conversation.  I am beginning to understand that when people say “Whatever you need”, they rarely mean it.  She finally arrives, and we embark on our date night.  We spent most of a rushed dinner anguishing about the movie times, worrying that it will put us past our “curfew”, complaining that we have a curfew, and that the request for a few hours off should be granted with so many strings attached.  The movie choice was dictated by time, and lack of new movies, so we watched an unusual film with an unsatisfying ending.  It was a slow movie, and we were both so tired, we nodded off.  My stomach hurt, and I could not stop running my tongue over my teeth, sure that I’ve ground them all down to nubs, and all of my fillings have fallen out.  I must wear the night guard.  No matter how much I floss, brush, gargle, I cannot get the smell of death and decay out of my nose, the taste out of my mouth.

After the movie, we change Dad’s diaper and sheets, then head to bed.  Date night is concluded with unsatisfactory sex, interrupted by leg cramps.  Marc this time, usually it’s me.  We try to reassure each other things will get better.  Nothing seems quite right at the moment.  Our reserves are utterly depleted.

May 31, Memorial Day.

It’s warm today, 77 degrees.  Water. OJ. Sandwich?  No sandwich.  A little up with the bed, a little down.  Untangle. Cover, uncover.  Water? No. Lip balm? Yes. No.  Diaper bothers.  Diaper bothers. Diaper bothers.  Move the umbrella.  Move it again. Again.  Other side.  No, the other side.  It never ends.   When we brought him outside today, he said “This is exactly where I wanted to be.”  But letting him be where he needs to be requires adjustments, every 90 seconds or so.  Turn me this way, that way. My knees.  My legs.  My head. Up down up down up down.  Too hot, too cold, back and forth, until suddenly, he is exploding with heat, despite the water, umbrellas, sunscreen.  We trundle him inside, cool cloths, a popsicle, lotion.  I drag out the vacuum, for the third time today.  I cry as I vacuum up the skin that flies everywhere.  I am repulsed but resigned.  He watches me as I lift his legs, and vacuum out the bed, says nothing.  My kids watch me with side eyes, afraid to ask if I am okay.  How can I be okay, when I am vacuuming up little pieces of my father, who is shedding his skin as if it is a cocoon about to burst open?  There is nothing okay about this at all.  The nurse gently reminded me recently that while his decline is slowing, because he is happy to be home and with family, he is still declining.

I sit on the deck, watching the sun get lower in the sky.  In my 90 second rest periods, I have at least gotten to watch the birds, and look at the water below, sparkling through the gaps between the Jupiter’s Beard and the peonies.  I think about how much time I have spent, sitting on the deck with my dad.  Summer nights in the Meadowdale house, watching the lights of the gillnetting boats.  Our tradition of watching the sunset together, the night before school started, saying goodbye to summer vacation.  He says he does not remember, but wishes he did.  I sneak away to the side deck, to have a really good cry.  Chocolate pudding and a popsicle provide me no solace.  A blue jay appears, a good luck sighting.  Dad keeps calling “Hello?”, cutting my pity party short.  He says “I want to sit up, as if I’m getting on the good side of things” and “I just woke up, and nothing is popping into relevance.”  He asked me to roll his eyes down again.  He means a cool cloth for his face.  He probably doesn’t realize he is high.  I’ve given him his nightly dropperful of THC, the only way we can keep him asleep and calm through the night.  We tell him it’s for his teeth.  He says he doesn’t think his teeth need anything, but we keep on.  He said today that “at this stage, I don’t have much interest in food.”  I tell him that’s okay.  I can’t tell if it makes him sad, or not.

June 1.

A good day, though I had to work more hours than I wanted to.  It’s hot.  We got Dad outside, and we all had Mexican takeout.  He didn’t eat much.  I am trying to have as many family dinners on the deck as possible, and include him.  He got a little overheated.  His face is getting tan, and it looks good with his white hair.

June 2.

An absolutely brutal day.  He’s been asking repeatedly to go to the office and the marina, so we chose today as the day.  Carter and Ruben were lined up ahead of time to assist, and Tina stayed late at the office, so she could be there when he came in.  I had planned for around 3:00, but it was so hot, and work kept me until 5:00.  We had been told we would need a PT aide to come and train us the proper way to transfer him in and out of the car, but commonsense has guided us this far, with confirmations from the hospice team after the fact, so we decided we could figure it out ourselves.  We dressed him, slathered him in sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses.  We got him into the wheelchair, and the boys got him up the hill, then into the car.  He pronounced it all too much trouble.

We made it to the office, and the boys lifted his wheelchair up the stairs.  We rolled him into his office, and he and Tina chatted.  Once he was there, he didn’t seem to want to stay.  I think he was feeling very, very sad.   It was all I could do to keep it together.  God bless Tina, she just chatted with him like it was nothing unusual.   I asked if he was hungry, and if he would like to go to Athens Pizza, his favorite place to eat.  He agreed, so we headed out.  Rather than try to manhandle him back into the car, Ruben and I decided we would push him the two blocks in his wheelchair.  What seemed like the simple solution was extremely difficult, as he did not have the leg strength to keep his feet on the footrests.  His feet kept dragging, so we rigged a sling for his feet and legs with the blanket, and I held them up, while Ruben pushed.  It was a long, long two blocks.

We called my sister, and she met us for dinner.  We ordered his favorite pizza, but he only took one bite, and said it did not taste good.  He was so sad, and seemed like he wanted to cry.  We hurried through the meal.  I asked if he still wanted to go to the marina, and he said no.  But I had been told by more than a few people that going to visit favorite places was important, that it was a step in getting ready to go.  I knew that we would not likely have another chance to get him out like this, so we bundled him back in the car, and he and I headed to the marina.

My dad’s apartment was just a couple of blocks from the marina, and he had a nightly routine of a long walk to the marina, along the water, and then looping back home.  He had many acquaintances he was friendly with and would chat with along the way, and favorite places along the route to sit and rest, and watch the water.  I parked where he could see the water, and the beach park, and we watched the sunset.  He was so tired from the effort of being out of bed, he could hardly stay awake.  But I could tell he was happy to see it again.  We didn’t stay long, as Marc and the boys were waiting to help get him out of the car, back down the hill, and back into bed, which took a while.  He was exhausted, and fell asleep right away.  I felt like we had checked an important box, happy that we were able to grant his wishes.  It is so painful to see him so sad.   His mind must be a stew of sorrow, denial and confusion.  I see no signs of acceptance.

June 7.

One day blends into another.  He’s been less active and social the last three days, sleepy.  Not much appetite.  I have been exhausted, too tired to do much but cater to him, and go to work when necessary, which is too much.  Saturday I was sick: vomiting, headache, sniffles.  Energy non-existent.  If resentment can manifest itself physically, then out it pours.  The entire weekend went by without any offers of help, texts or calls.  One short visit by Mom.

He looks at me with sad, sad eyes, and says “Now what? What should I be doing now?”  How am I supposed to answer? The hospice team remains perplexed, not sure which way he is going, but working for him with optimism, and going beyond mere palliative measures, just in case.  When he seemed to be improving, they had relented, and refilled his antibiotics.  They made it very clear that they probably were not really working, but agreed to let him keep taking them.  We’ve passed the three week mark, passed the full moon.  New moon is two days away.  His birthday and Father’s Day are looming.  He wants to go outside every day, and when it hasn’t rained, we’ve done it, rolling his hospital bed out to the deck, which is less work than transferring him into the wheelchair.  Saturday, I was alone with him, and getting him out was easy, but back in, over the sill, took some engineering.  I was exhausted afterward.

No sign of the praying mantises.  Maybe they’re not even in there, and I was sold empty egg cases.  Maybe they are dead.  When I work too much, I’m out of tune with the natural world.  If I turn my back on it for work, it gives me the cold shoulder, and then it’s hard to tune back in.  I must listen harder, look closer for signs.

The light of the low sun tonight, shining in his eyes, made them glow beautifully, like golden marbles.  He doesn’t question why I take pictures of him every day.

June 10.

There is nowhere in our small house where I can hide from the noises.  A houseful of boys, sports, games.  An old man who comes with non-stop calls for water, untangling, imagined needs.  The constant whining of the machine that runs the cycles on his air mattress.  Never ending laundry, non-stop dishwasher, though very few meals are being prepared.  Spoons, lots of spoons.

Time is stretching, pulling, standing still.  I’ve lost all sense of it.  The days blend together, punctuated by visits from nurses and aids, the reporting in of wound care and food consumption. The only time that is measured is between pills.  A wait at a stop light feels like fifteen minutes, and I calmly sit, surprised when it finally turns, and I must move.  I forget to write in my journal.  My work is broken up into chunks, some an hour, some ten hours.  I don’t get enough done, do nothing well.  People are patient with me, so far.  I was so dizzy this afternoon, standing at the printer, I almost could not keep my balance.  I forget to eat, don’t eat enough, eat the wrong things.  Marc says I should be happy, my dad seems good.  If I am crying, he wants to know why, as if some particular thing has triggered it.

There is talk that maybe Dad has reached his new normal, that maybe he’ll survive this for a while longer.  I see in his eyes that he does not want that.  What if he does reach a plateau? I can’t move him again. I worry I have taken in a high maintenance, long-term roommate, and that it will affect my family, and that was not what they signed on for…not that I truly asked their permission. (To Marc’s eternal credit, his agreement to my plan was immediate and unconditional.)

I had noticed some weight loss in his core, but it took the nurse pointing out his sunken cheeks for me to see it.  The emotional roller coaster and tiny signs of improvement have clouded my vision, and I have not registered the thinning legs, the meatless flanks, the fact that when we help him roll from side to side, there is nothing but bony hips.  Some days he eats a little, some days nothing but a cookie, or some water or juice.  Today, nothing at all, just water and OJ.  Last night he ate a good portion of chicken and potatoes, two servings of ice cream.  Tina had brought the ice cream by for an early birthday gift.

He has hardly spoken.  When asked how he is doing, he’ll say “Fair, I suppose.”  His birthday is three days away, his 92nd.  I wonder if he is holding out for that.  He wants vanilla ice cream, but can’t think of anything he would want for his birthday dinner.

Desperate for quiet, and nature, I sat outside on the deck after work, reading.  The blue sky and white cloud masses have given way to a low, solid cloud cover, threatening rain.  It feels like I am in a pot, and the lid is closing down over me.  Marc and I stood for a while, looking over the deck railing, watching a small wild bunny nibble daintily on the calendula.  Marc was apparently in the direct flight path of the hummingbirds, and they charged his head again and again, flying right up to his face, demanding he move aside, so they could fly from their perch directly to the feeder.  It must be time for the second broods of the season – the mating dives are non-stop.  Hobson hates the high pitched sound, and barks every time.

After dinner, I was still feeling overstimulated by NBA playoffs and the boys loud video gaming, so I decided to sit in the hot tub.  I usually wait until after dark, so I don’t have to wear a bathing suit, but tonight, I decided to go in at dusk.  I sat with my eyes closed for a while.  I didn’t hear anything, but must have sensed it, and when I opened my eyes, the pygmy owl was perched on top of the bird feeder pole, only five feet away from me.  We watched each other for a moment, neither of us moving.  Suddenly, it swooped down low, right over my head, did a low flyover of the table and an aborted landing, and then swooped up and landed on the other feeder tower.  It seemed to be watching the yard below, probably looking for the baby bunny we were watching earlier.  After a minute or so, it swooped down over my head again, then landed out of sight in the yard, tousling briefly with something below the deck, before flying into the tall evergreens next door.   I hopped out of the tub, and went to get Marc, who came out to investigate.  As soon as Marc gives up and goes back in, and is telling my dad I saw an owl, it returns.  Marc spots it before I do, and whispers to me through the open window.  He is back atop the feeders.  Marc is excited to have finally seen it.  I am filled with trepidation.  He is the messenger, and though I have been expecting it, listening for it, I am shocked by the appearance, the closeness, the unmistakable sign.  He flies away, to the tall evergreens on the cliff, and coos softly.  Not the staccato call of our encounter a month ago, but soft, sympathetic coos:  prepare, prepare, prepare.  I stay outside until long after dark, listening, but the calls only last a short while.

I go inside, and check him for breathing.  Slow, but there, even.  He opens his eyes in greeting, drifts back to sleep.  Still wrapped in a towel, I take an orange outside, to the front of the house this time, and sit in the dark, not moving, so the motion lights don’t come on.  As I eat my orange, listening to the fountain, I eye the container holding the praying mantis egg cases.  I haven’t had time to check them today, but I don’t do it now.  They need the dark, the quiet, the stillness.  I’ve had enough signs today, I’m not ready to find they have hatched.  We sit together quietly, in the dark, nothing to do but wait.

June 11.

Bobbi came by, and talking in whispers, I told her of the owl visit, what I think it means.  From across the room, Marc announced “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I saw another owl today.”  He had been on an errand that afternoon, and came upon an owl, sitting in the middle of the road, just before the bridge that crosses Saltwater Park.  He wasn’t sure what kind, but said it was big.  It had its prey clutched in its talons, and wouldn’t, or couldn’t, take flight.  Marc slowly approached, then went around it, and it never moved.  He watched in his rear view mirror, but never saw it fly away.

I am a life-long bird watcher, and we live in one of two states that has the most owl species, yet prior to this year, I can count my owl sightings on just a few fingers:  A great horned owl at Sunrise.  A barn owl on the road by the dairy.  A barred owl on a lunchtime bike ride at Des Moines Beach Park.  A large owl in a tree next to the road, on a walk in Redondo Canyon with Marc.  A great horned owl on a neighbor’s roof in Dumas Bay.  Two owls in the tallest tree at the Nile Country Club, so large that Sherman and I saw them at the same time, as we drove on the freeway, coming home from visiting Dad at the rehab facility in Marysville.  I don’t count the short eared owls in Bow, because they are not chance sightings, I visit them every year, in the same field.

Looking back, in this last year and a half, since my brother’s death, I have heard them, calling in the night, their unmistakable hoots and mating calls echoing in the green belt above Dumas Bay.  When we moved to Woodmont last January, I would lie awake at night, listening to the nature sounds, getting to know my new neighbors.  I could hear the calls of what I thought was the pygmy owl, but had not definitively identified it, not until my encounter in April, when I was able to match its call to its diminutive size.

As I was recounting the episode to my sister, and telling her how intimate it felt, it sounded too fanciful to be true.  Some nature encounters are so profound, they never leave you.  This was one of them.  In my current state of fatigue and grief, I am still trying to process it.  That Marc is having his own owl encounters both terrifies and comforts me.  He is as much of a caretaker for Dad as I am.  The thought that scares the shit out of me is that while I am occupied trying to prepare for the known death that is marching toward us, is another one going to catch us by surprise?  I have waited most of my life, wondering why I never saw owls, wondering if I would understand them when they called my name.  To see so many now, 56 years in, makes me deeply nervous.

It hit me last night that my father’s dying is not an isolated event.  Everyone I love is going to die, it is just a matter of will I lose them first, or will it be me, leaving them?  Both, all, will happen.  It has been too easy to forget that, but now, the reminders are everywhere…and the messengers come closer and closer, on silent wings.  It would not surprise me if the next owl alights on my outstretched arm, and blinks its marble eyes at me…”We know, we know, we know.”

Puzzling together his requests takes some work.  He asks for help “tending his garden.”  He settles for a diaper change, and an untangling of sheets from around his legs.  He asks for “some of that ale”.  He means the blackberry ginger ale, “not separate from the drink”.  In the can, he means, not a glass.  Even at the end, one wants what one wants.  A little control, some decisions and choices, no matter that they’re small.

Later:  When I ask him how he’s doing, he says “Not very well, but as good as I can.”  He holds my gaze for a long time, until I turn away with a smile, letting him glimpse only the beginning of my tears.

June 12.

I wander around the house, making pit stops every few minutes, to fluff, untangle, get water.  I hear the crows making a fuss, so I go outside to investigate.  The baby crow that has been hiding in the garden shrubs along the fence for the past week has emerged.  I sit on the garden swing, and watch as it climbs the rhodie, all clumsy and noisy.  The adult crows fly above me, protesting my presence, until they decide I pose no immediate threat.  When the baby reaches a sunny spot near the top, it stops to catch its breath.  I wait a few minutes, then approach, ever so slowly.  The only sign that it is a baby are the stubby tail feathers, not yet grown in.  The beak and head are adult size.  It sits quietly, watching me.  I whisper a few words of encouragement and congratulations, then leave it in peace to enjoy the sunshine, and stretch its wings.

June 13.

He’s made it to his birthday, 92, something I had not believed would be possible a few weeks ago.  He slept all day.  When we were changing him, and putting on a fresh shirt, I told him that we were having a small birthday gathering.  He seemed dismayed, and asked that I not let it go on too long.  I had already warned everyone that it would be a short party, half hour or so.

He perked up incredibly for the party, posing for pictures, chatting, reading his cards.  He ate a big bowl of ice cream, and did not complain when I dripped hot candle wax on his arm. The effort exhausted him, and he fell asleep before the last guest left.  Another milestone.

June 14.

He’s awake bright and early, with his usual “good morning” greeting.  He says he wishes he could come to work with me.  He eats heartily, and again, it’s impossible not to get my hopes up.  He’s reading the newspaper when I leave.

June 15.

A hummingbird flew into the bedroom today, and Marc picked it up and released it back outside.  He wants me to keep the deck doors closed in the bedroom, but I refuse.  I like the feeling that I’m camping out, can feel the rain and the breeze.  Last week, he saved two chickadees from the same fate, but not before they pooped all over the bedroom and office.  I just brush it off my pillows, and the computer screen.  I’m never here when it happens, he gets all the fun.  Though it’s good payback for all he is doing, which is so much.

June 16.

The emotional roller coaster of denial, grief, and acceptance is not linear, not logical or fair.  I get my hopes up, and the hospice team brings me back to reality.  Dad says now, when asked, “I’m not doing very well.”  It breaks my heart each time.  He asked this morning what the nurse said about his wound, and I told him it was worse.  His face was so sad.  He slept outside on the deck for a couple of hours today, and seemed very peaceful.  I sat outside after dark, alone, and cried and cried.

June 18.

“Marc, I would like to request scrambled eggs for my introductory course.”  He can’t come up with the common words, but can string along such interesting combinations.  The mind is a  fascinating thing.

Some common Dad phrases:

“More or less…”
“Couldn’t hurt…”
“May as well…”

Always so agreeable, and optimistic.

June 19.

We had the talk today, the one I had been dreading.  I had been waiting for him to bring it up, the fact that he is dying, but he didn’t.  Wouldn’t.  I thought I saw it in his eyes, from time to time, as he held my gaze, but maybe I was imagining it.

The chaplain had told me days ago that it needed to be said, that it would open the door for more conversation, for each of us.  For the last few days, he had been so sleepy, or there were other people around, or he was talking loopy.  But this morning, it was just he and I, and he was trying to explain that there was something across his back, like a bar, and it needed to be “rotated the other way”.  Mercifully, he has had no pain to this point, but clearly he is starting to feel something.  It seemed like enough of an opening into a discussion of his wound.  I told him it was bad, and not going to get better.  That the antibiotics were not working, and had not been for some time.  That the infection was not going to heal, that he would not survive it.  “I’m not going to be a survivor?” he asked.  I told him, no, that this was going to be what caused him to die.  That it would be a month or less, that it depended on how much he ate, and how aggressive the infection was, that it was going to eventually overrun his body.  That his body was failing, and that was why he was getting so thin, why he had no appetite.  That his body knew it would soon no longer need food.  For the past few days, he had been raising his arms, probing his hanging skin and thin muscles, testing, measuring.  He had seemed confused by the changes.  He just nodded as I talked, and even though I was crying, he did not cry.  He met each statement with a frown, and a “hmm.”

He asked how long I had known, and I told him since he had come home, five weeks ago.  That the doctor at the rehab facility had only given him two weeks to live.  He did not remember being there, and could not fathom how a night of confusion in February could have led to this.  He asked who else knew, and I told him everyone knew.  I asked if he had known, or if he was surprised.  He said he had not felt it, or known, but was not surprised.  It wasn’t until I told him his sister had called, and begged us to ask the doctor if there was anything else we could try, that he broke down.  The thought that his big sister was going to bat for him seemed to be too much.  Through tears, I told him how said I was, how glad I was that he was my dad, and how happy I was to have him here.   We talked about how it could be worse, a tragic or painful death.  How maybe just going to sleep and not waking up is easier, but does not allow for goodbyes.  That having no pain is such a blessing.  He said he’d never heard of anyone dying from a bedsore infection.  He wanted me to call the doctor for a consult.  I could see that he was not buying the idea that this was it.  We cried more, then dried our tears.  He asked what kind of fruit we had on hand.

Later:  “Who’s in charge of the wound?”  I thought maybe he would take matters in hand, and eat more.  He has the choice.  He also has the choice to stop eating.  I could tell he was processing throughout the day.  He asked about his cat, his car, his bills.  I reassured him that all was taken care of.  He slept most of the rest of the day on the deck, surrounded by umbrellas, birds, the sunshine and breeze.  He would not consent to go inside until the sun was almost down. When I tried to take his picture, as I do most days, I asked if he could smile, and he said “No, it’s not the time for smiling.”

I thought I would feel better afterward, but I don’t.  Marc says it will be interesting to see if he remembers the talk tomorrow.  I hope so – I had told him I wanted to tell him, to talk about it with him, while he could still hear me, and respond.  But will he remember?  We’ll see.

Many blue jays today, the eagle watched us all day.  Four days from another full moon. “All we can do is try to make each day the best possible”, I had told him, and he said “Yes, that’s what we should do.”

June 20.

Father’s Day.  Summer Solstice.  The longest day of the year.  It’s only 1:45, but it definitely feels like the longest day of the year.  It’s sunny and 80 degrees, and I sit here, alone with my dad.  This is the first Father’s Day I can remember where I spent the whole day with him.  That is a sad first, but I don’t think he holds it against me.  He is a wanderer, who spawned a wanderer.  He understands it, respects it.

About every three minutes, he calls me over to ask if I see “that white spot” on Maury Island.  He means the snow capped Olympics, just barely visible above the top of the island.  He keeps asking how we get there, tells me we need to go there, pick up a key, and then head North.  I describe the various routes, and he shakes his head no, not drive.  “I need to figure out how to get there, metaphorically speaking.”  I tell him he could fly, and he smiles.  I ask where he would go from there, and he says that’s what he’s trying to figure out.  “Stymied…” he says.

I spend my time writing in two minute intervals, and watching him.  He adjusts the sheets, fusses with the umbrella over his head, rubs sunscreen in his eyes, yet again.  He goes through hand motions, which seem to accompany hallucinations.  He calls me over again, and again, and again.  I may feel trapped, but at least I’m not trapped in bed, trapped in a body that is frail and crumbling, trapped in a mind that refuses to cooperate with putting the pieces together.  Our talk may have come none too soon.  He seems to be losing his grip on reality again.  We had a few good weeks.

He asked Marc this morning for scrambled eggs, “Whipped, lightly scrambled.”  Apparently Marc’s previous preparation had left something to be desired.  If he’s going to eat, then it seems there should be no harm in adding in the expensive probiotics, some Vitamin D, some mushroom immunity-boosting supplements.  If he’s not ready to cash it in, then neither am I.  I know it will prolong things, but I’m okay with that.

Even though I feel trapped, and I see my summer slipping away, and I am exhausted, I know I have things to look forward to.  More summers, God willing.  I realized last night that this is what sacrifice feels like, and that I have never truly sacrificed before.  I have been through down times, times of adversity, made small choices that might have deprived me of something that now would seem inconsequential.  But I realize that I have never before made this kind of choice, to sacrifice, to put my life on absolute hold. To give up, for an unknown period of time, all that I hold dear, all that I do to refresh and re-energize myself.  It somehow makes it easier, I feel less resentment, to know that I am making a sacrifice. I know I have made a choice that many people are not willing to make. To be honest, though that is not something I should probably admit, it makes me feel like I am a superior being to be making the choice to sacrifice.  But superior is lonely, and rather isolating.  I also know that compared to what other people have had to do, my experience may not compare, and there are plenty of others who have done it better, and probably with less self-pity. Marc is golfing with the boys, at my insistence.  I can hear voices drifting down, visitors to Marc and Trish for Father’s Day.  They will come and go, as usual, without coming down to say hello, to check in.  They are all afraid of death, I guess.  My family will come by, at some point, out of obligation, but only as it fits into their to-do list.  My to-do list will be whatever my father needs, every minute, all day.  Diapers, water, sunscreen, sheets, blankets, up, down, up, down, up, down.  And to help him as he tries to figure out how to get over the water, to the snowy mountaintop, and to figure out where he goes from there.

Later:  He did remember, and it is the immediate topic as each person comes by.  First thing after my mom arrived, he asks “Does she know the details?”  To Bobbi:  “Did you hear about my admission to the death club?”  To me, before Sherman arrives, “What was the name of that society I belong to now?”  (Hospice.)  To Sherman:  “Do you know about me being in the Society of People Who Won’t be Around Long?”

He also has not let up all day about needing to get across the water to the mountaintop.  “Will we need a reservation?”  “We will need to climb.”  He assures me that from here on out, he can get in and out of the car himself.  He insists we go.  At 11:00, we are still negotiating.  Ten hours to Hurricane Ridge is too long a trip, so he settles on a drive to Mt. Rainier.  Tonight?  No, tomorrow.  He reminds me again that is where we will pick up the key, then head North.  And from there, who knows?  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

June 21.

Here’s what today did bring:

In the morning, an emphatic yes, the road trip was still on.  All hands on deck to get him dressed, into the wheelchair, up the hill, into my car, propped with foam, pillows, blankets, extra layers, hats, sunscreen.  It was a beautiful day, so I had the top down.  Plus, that was the only way to get him into the car, with Ruben standing on the driver’s seat, to lift him in.  I had packed snacks, drinks, water, loaded his favorite hymns onto my iPod.

The beginning of the drive went smoothly.  We enjoyed the scenery, stopped at a farm in Kapowsin to admire the colts running in the field.  He joked about my driving, complained about my choice of route, knowing enough that this was not the way to the Olympic range, forgetting we had agreed on Mt. Rainer as the destination.  The weather was pleasant, the temperature comfortable.  But as we began to climb in altitude, things began to change, and the requests to pull over started.

He wanted me to pull over so he could sleep.  (Unsuccessful.) Pull over, so he could “be still for a while.”  Pull over “to have some quiet.”  Twenty times, we pulled over, I counted them later on my GPS.  Each spot, a beautiful, shady pullout, in the shadow of the mountain, surrounded by stunning views, and lush green forest.   Each stop involved adjusting the seat, pillows, outerwear, trying anything to make him comfortable.  Up, down, up, down.  I was trying not to panic, wondering if I had made a terrible error in judgment, bringing him this far.  But he had been so insistent.  It took us hours to get anywhere near Paradise.  As we gained altitude, I noticed he was breathing harder, and seemed increasingly uncomfortable.  He wanted so badly to sleep, but fought to keep his eyes open, so he wouldn’t miss anything.  And every time we pulled over so he could nap, he was unable to sleep.  It was hot, 88 degrees.  I had thought it would be cooler up high, but I was wrong.  He drank water and ginger ale, but would not eat any of the snacks I had brought along.  I offered him a slice of mandarin orange, and he chewed on it for a few minutes, then spit it onto the window, thinking it was down.  I kept offering to turn around, but we were so close, he wanted to keep going.  I knew how important being at the top of a mountain was to him, and I knew in my heart we would not be venturing out again.  I finally stopped just short of Paradise, at the snow camp parking lot, which has a stunning view of the mountain.  I said “There’s your mountaintop”, and he said “Okay.  Let’s go home now, the quickest way.”

Several times on the way up, while complaining about my choice of route, he said that he wanted to go home a different way.  I was dreading the traffic back through Puyallup, and the heat, so at the last minute, I veered onto Stevens Canyon Road, so we could circle the mountain, and return home through Enumclaw.  Not shorter, but maybe less traffic.  We drove past Reflection Lake, still covered in ice, and down the hair-raising back side of the mountain, steep cliffs dropping away beside us. I felt a rising terror, trying not to look over the edge, gripping the wheel and determined to stay on course, if a falling rock were to startle me and make me swerve. I felt like I had precious cargo aboard, and we were so vulnerable, in the open car. Soon, we dropped back down in elevation, my nerves settled down, we were back into the welcome coolness of the forest.  He asked again if we could pull over, and so, for the twentieth time, I did.  We were at a wide pullout near Nickel Creek, under a canopy of ancient trees.  I asked if I should adjust his seat again, and he answered yes.

I got out, went around to his side of the car, and as I opened his door, he had a stroke.

It was unmistakable.  “This is it”, I thought.  I held his hand, rested the other hand on his shoulder, and watched.  There was nothing else I could do.  We were hours from the nearest hospital, there was no cell service, and it seemed he had picked his moment, and his spot.  The worst of it, the grimacing, his frozen mouth, drool running out, tears streaming down his cheeks, went on for over a minute.  Then his face went slack, and he became unresponsive, but still slowly flailing his arms. He kept trying to open his eyes, to focus on me, but seemed to see nothing. He would bring his hand to my cheek, and unable to control his movements, he would push against my face.  I said all the things I thought I was supposed to say, that it was okay for him to go, if he was ready.  That we would all be okay, that we would see him again in Heaven.  But he would not give up.  I stood next to him, beside the open car door, for the next three hours.

When I thought my knees would snap, I moved back into the driver’s seat, and held his hand.  He went through the same motions, over and over.  Arms raised, then motioning forward, as if directing traffic, then arms crossed to his chest.  Then hands to his forehead, as if he had a headache.  Every now and then, he would reach over, and put his hand on my knee, almost by accident.  Then he would repeat the sequence again.

It was so quiet there, so peaceful.  Only one car had come by, while I was standing beside him, and they slowed as if to see if we need help, but I waved them on.  No other cars ever came by.  After I had been sitting for half an hour or so, I began to look around for the source of the soft bird calls I had been hearing for hours, but not really registering.  I spotted a pair of ravens, just above us and in front of the car, perched on a low branch of a giant Douglas fir, watching us.  They sat so close to each other, their wings were touching.

Another two hours passed, with no change.  I was beginning to get very stiff from sitting so still.  I decided to get out and walk to the bridge, to see the waterfall.  If he was waiting for me to leave his side, so I wouldn’t be there when he died, I was going to offer that chance.  I had been told, and had read, that sometimes people wait until they are alone.  The waterfall was magnificent.  I looked back up the hill to the car, and the sun was shining down on it through the giant trees.  Everything was saturated in green and sunbeams.  I thought to myself that he could not have picked a better spot, if this was his time.  I was only gone from the car for ten minutes, and as I walked back, I was prepared to find him peacefully gone.  We was more peaceful, but still alive.  I got back into the car, and pondered the next move.  Maybe a hymn?  I played Amazing Grace, a favorite of both of ours.  No response, no change.  I finally decided that we couldn’t sit there all night, that apparently this was not the time or place.  I buckled him in, and drove away, praying that we would make it home, and that he wouldn’t die in traffic, at a stoplight next to the casino.

It was a long, long drive home.  I was absolutely exhausted.  In the hours I stood next to him, the planner in me had come up with a list of to-dos, in case he died there.  Stop at the Ranger station, as all deaths in the Park need to be reported.  As soon as I could get cell service, call Hospice, and have them alert the coroner that I was on the way.  Surely they would have a way to get him out of the car.  Now that he had survived, but was unresponsive and as limp as a rag doll, I needed a new game plan.  I knew Marc and Ruben would never be able to get him back out of the car, into the wheelchair, and back into bed.  I was not about to go to the hospital, they would be required to try to revive him, run tests, waste time.  I hatched a new plan, to swing by the fire station near my house, and see if they could follow us home, put him on a gurney, and wheel him down the hill.  As soon as I was in cell range, I called Marc, filled him in on what had happened, and we agreed to the plan.  On the way home, he continued to flail his arms, hitting me in the face and arms while I was driving.  I had to resort to holding his arm down.  If he remained still for more than a few minutes, I would check his pulse.  I did check it at the stoplight at the casino, expecting my worst fear to be confirmed.  While we were waiting for the light to change, someone let off a loud firework next to us.  I about shot out of the car like I was in an ejection seat in a fighter plane, but he did not even flinch.

It was after 9:00 when I arrived at the fire station.  They were sympathetic, but did not have a gurney on hand, plus they got an emergency call while we were discussing the situation.  They advised me to call 911, and request assistance.  I called on the way home, and they arrived within minutes, a fire truck and four burly firemen.  Our neighbors are getting used to aid vehicles appearing at the Berry residence.  It took three strong men, standing on the seats of the car, to transfer him.  Fortunately, I had covered the foam cushion with a sheet, and they were able to use it as a sling.  It took all four of them, one standing on top of his bed, to get him into it.  By 10:00, he was changed, in fresh clothes, and clearly more comfortable, sleeping peacefully.  Family was notified, and Mom and Bobbi come over.  It probably won’t be long now.  He can’t swallow, he’s unresponsive.  I can’t think of a better place to go to Heaven than where we were, but he’ll go when he is ready, when God calls him home.  He is stubborn, though, and hard of hearing.  Maybe he’s ignoring the call, pretending he can’t hear it.

I wonder what I will find in the morning.

June 22.

I again cannot believe the emotional roller coaster we are on. I went to bed last night rethinking the care plan, what to do now that he is unresponsive; how we will have a harder time changing and rolling him, now that he can’t grasp the side rail. How I will need to use the sponge-on-a-stick thingy, to keep his mouth moist, because he can’t swallow. That we now have to be done with the antibiotics, because he can’t swallow, and the infection will rise up and consume him at last.

I stayed in bed this morning, stalling, looking up the differences between a seizure and a stroke, because the EMTs said it could have been either. Trying to decide if I go to work today, or if the bedside vigil starts now. I finally drag myself out of bed, and go downstairs, to find Dad sitting up in bed, reading the paper, and greeting me with a cheery “Good morning”. Marc, who is always up early, was sitting at the dining table, working. I stared at Marc in disbelief. He’d already given him some breakfast, and his pills. I texted my mom and siblings, tell them he’s awake, and acting like nothing had happened. They come right over. The hospice nurse arrives, having been advised of the events of the night before, and I fill her in. She believes he’s had a mini-stroke, and slept it off. If that was a mini-stroke, I dread the big one. Maybe the big ones are faster.

He remembers our outing, seeing the mountain, that we were at Mt. Rainier, not in the Olympics. He remembers nothing of the stroke, or the time after. I don’t tell him, or that the nurse predicts that it was only the first of more to come.

Having asked for a consultation with the doctor previously, he now decides the nurse will do. He pumps her for information, status, prognosis. She dances around his questions, until I tell her that we have talked about him not surviving the infection. So she tells him that she’s never seen anyone recover from one this bad, but there is always hope. She tells him to eat, to move around in the bed. That maybe he will last a month, or just a few weeks, or it could be only days. He takes it all in, and once she has left, he says we need to get some food he will find desirable. I tell him to name it, and I will get it.

Not knowing what else to do, I go to the office for a bit. I can concentrate on nothing, so I only stay a while. I drive to Seattle, and splurge on some binoculars I have been researching, the binoculars of my dreams. It’s an obscene extravagance, Marc tells me later. I have no regrets. If I am to be confined to the deck for the rest of the summer, I’m going to at least get a good look at the world beyond. I dream of my someday trip, my escape, once this is all over. Just me, my convertible, my binoculars, some hiking poles.

Marc says he hopes I’ll come back as me, because the me he knows is missing.

June 23.

He’s reading the paper when I come downstairs, says Marc fed him Cream of Wheat with raisins, and deems it unpalatable. Though Marc confirms that is exactly what he asked for.

The nurse is here again today. Measurement Day. The undermining is growing in all directions, she says she hasn’t seen one this bad before. He feels no pain as she probes with a long Q-tip, measuring, digging, taking notes. His vitals are great, not like a dying man. Discretely, she points out the mottling beginning on his knees, the cold limbs, the sunken temples. The wound is growing at an alarming rate. There is no stopping this train now.

I am getting used to the smells, the sights. The diaper changes don’t phase me. I am getting used to the flows of pus, running from the wound like lava from a volcano, the chunks of flesh that come out when the nurse flushes the wound. I can push the dressing back in the hole without retching, when I change the dressing myself. What I cannot stand, and am repulsed by, is the constant flaking. Skin everywhere. The nurses and bathing aids pick off giant chunks, and throw the biggest ones in, or near, the garbage. I watch in silent horror as the rest are brushed to the floor, or gather on his sheets and shirt. I can hardly get them out the door, before I run for the vacuum. I vacuum everywhere, the floor, his bed, under his feet. I was tempted today to run it around the neck of his shirt, but I stopped myself just in time. I’m not sure if he is going to dissolve from the inside out, or his skin will just flake away completely, and he will blow away, like a character in a sci-fi movie.

There were significant consequences from our outing, beyond the mini-stroke. The hours of sitting in the car, despite my best efforts of padding the car seat with the special foam pad we had been given, caused grave damage to his backside. He has absolutely no meat on his bones, and the skin is as fragile as tissue paper. One accidental slice of my fingernail, inflicted while we loaded him into the car, has flayed a quarter-size chunk off his forearm. His bottom is bruised, deep purple and black, with blisters and spots where the skin has just peeled away, leaving open sores. I slap Medi-Honey patches and cream and gauze where I can, making up first aid shit as I go. What was supposed to have been a max five-hour up and back had turned into a twelve hour trip, after twenty stops, and an hours-long death watch. His poor body cannot take that much abuse. The nurse had told me previously that it was very important to take him where he felt he needed to go, and we would deal with the fallout afterward. She reminds me of that again after the fact, and I feel less guilty.

Yesterday, he remembered we were at Mt. Rainier. Today, he does not, and asks how close we got to the Mountain across the water. I don’t correct him, I just tell him we got very close. I show him the picture of us, with the mountain in the background, and he asks if it was taken before he got sick. It certainly could have been; I spent most of my childhood on long drives, him pointing out each mountain by name, each river. Later, he asks how much time has passed since he got sick. I tell him four months, and he just shakes his head in disbelief.

We had moved him to the deck for the evening, as it’s beautiful out. Marc and the boys have gone golfing. I spend hours trying to convince Dad that he does not have a dog. He is quite sure he has one. He has ideas for my brother’s memorial service, though I keep telling him we’ve already had it, but he was in the hospital, and missed it. He is testy. I am patient, but I can feel it running dry. He has taken to throwing things to the ground – pillows, blankets, each section of the Sunday paper, one page at a time. His cup, the kleenex box, my expensive sunglasses that I keep putting back on him. He calls for the binoculars, and I let him try my new ones. I keep one hand on the strap, just in case he flings them to the ground, too.

He tries to eat, but nothing tastes good. He says “I still have hope for this wound.” I tell him I do, too. We have enough antibiotics for ten more days. They’re doing nothing to stop the spread of the infection, but if he is still alive when we run out, I predict I will be begging for another refill.

Periodically, I slip away to the side deck, out of sight, and sit in the porch swing. I drink in the smell of petunias, stock, carnations, hyssop. I’m only gone for a few minutes at a time, but each time I return, he wants to know why I was gone so long. Then the cycle of requests and questions and clarifications and bewilderment begin again. These truly are the longest days of the year.

Later, much later: It’s 1:30 in the morning, and Marc has just managed to get to sleep, but I am still awake, lying in the dark. The boys are always up late, and downstairs, I hear much loud banging and yelling. I’m annoyed that they get so loud playing their video games. I can’t understand why all the running and yelling. Then Ruben dashes into the bedroom, calling for help…Grandpa has fallen out of bed. We run downstairs, and find him lying on the floor, his head and shoulders wedged under the guard rail, which has fallen down. I get down on the floor, and slide him out carefully, hoping nothing is broken. As I sit down on the floor, I begin to issue directives, because nothing seems to be happening. Bring his blankets. A pillow. Turn on the lights. No, the other light, the one overhead. The switch is on the wall, over there. Bring my glasses, so I can see. Find the after-hours number for hospice. Grab my phone. Find the bandaids. I tell them right where they are, and they still can’t find them. As I sit, trying to keep him calm, and from trying to get up, I realize he is smearing blood all over my pajamas, all over the floor. His tissue-thin skin has tears, on his elbows and shins. I put bandaids all over. I instruct Ruben to call 911, we’ll need help getting him back in bed. I tell Marc to call hospice, we’ll need permission to give him something, from the still-sealed bag of the hospice care kit, the drugs that until now, we have not needed. While we wait, Dad explains that he can’t use this bed anymore, it’s not functional, it has him trapped. He insists he can just sleep on the floor. He asks if AAA is coming.

Everything is happening at once. The firemen arrive, the dog is barking, Marc is on the phone with the nurse. The boys are helpful, Carter waited outside for the EMTs, Ruben locks the dog up in another room. I only slightly register that I am barely dressed, and smeared with blood, with strange men in my living room. Very kind and helpful, but still, strange men. They devise a plan, use a sheet for a sling. It takes my two boys and three firemen to get my frail father back up on the bed. We are granted permission from hospice to tear open the bag of hard drugs, and thus begins the use of the scary stuff. Marc gathers the bloody sheets, we change his diaper, which has thankfully hung on, just by a thread, somehow keeping that disaster contained. I clean the floor with bleach. I tell my dad he cannot get out of bed. “But what if I need to go to the kitchen?” he asks. We talk and talk, and he says he understands, then one minute later, says he’ll just need to get up to take a shower. He wants the water bottle left where he can reach it, and is very frustrated that I won’t comply, because he can’t drink while lying flat, he’ll aspirate, and he can’t sit up by himself. A six-button remote control is way beyond him now. He doesn’t notice we are tying a sheet around his legs to restrain him. I think back to the middle of the night call from him the first night he stayed in the ER, when they had tied restraints on his arms, after he pulled his IV out with his teeth. “They are keeping me prisoner here!” he had cried. Now I am the jailer.

I scrub my arms, dig out fresh pajamas from a box. I really need to finish unpacking my boxes of clothes. They have been sitting in the bedroom since he got sick in February.

I tell Marc I think the “easy” part is over now, and he agrees.

June 30.

I’ve been too exhausted to write in my journal. The days all blend together. I haven’t been to work in I don’t know how long. I hope I still have a business. Thank God for Tina.

We have survived the heat wave; historic, unprecedented. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it, how I was going to keep him comfortable at 112 degrees. Turns out it was only 108. Turns out that since the blood has vacated his arms and legs, he was ice cold. For me, no such luck, but we made it through.

I’ve become too tired to keep track of time, the days. I just sit outside, bored to death or numb, if he’s asleep. If he’s awake, I get exhausted, trying to meet his needs, answer his questions, help him sort through his confusion and searching. He routinely asks “Where do I go from here?” and “Let’s say I’m starting from scratch, what do I do next?” Night is day, day is night, in his ever-shrinking world. It is an all-consuming decision cycle: Do I let him wrestle with his questions, and get increasingly frustrated with the lack of satisfactory answers, or do I give him the drugs, knowing he will sleep for a day and a half? I want him to be comfortable, but I hang on to everything he says. He is a man with a vast vocabulary, and it is fascinating to listen to him try to convey a thought, when the word he needs has slipped away, so a combination of similar ones must fill in. The other night, I was getting him ready for bed, and saying goodnight. He said “Wait, I need smoothing over my eyes. I was expecting something over my skull.” I had kept him cool through the heat wave with wet cloths on his brow, and he wanted more.
Yesterday, he was pushing on his temple, saying “If I start here, something should be happening.” He has me try it, also achieving zero results, whatever those results were supposed to be. It’s as if he is trying to find the button that opens the door to heaven.

I spend day after day, confined to the deck. It’s cooler there, and I can see and hear him through the open French doors. Marc and the boys have been going out, on the boat, golfing. I insist, Marc’s summer is slipping away, too. He doesn’t want it to seem like he wants to get out, though he must desperately want to escape. I employ the boys to ask him to do things with them. I know if they ask him, he will have a hard time saying no. I feel no resentment toward him for it, which is not my usual style. There is just no energy left for that. I ask him if it bothers him that I need to be gone, alone, when this is over. He says he knows me well enough to know it’s the only way I will be able to recover, to come back to myself. He feels like he has lost his wife – I am just an empty shell right now. Sex is a distant memory. I hope someday I will remember how, want to have it. In some ways, this is keeping Marc and I apart, but in other ways, it has brought us closer. Though I cry every day, Marc has only cried once, when he told me how proud of me he is, for what I am doing for my father.

Watching my father’s body break down is torture. He is drying out on the outside, rotting on the inside. His face is tan, his beautiful hair white as snow, but his eyes seem to be shrinking, becoming cloudy. Every few hours, I have to clean the crust and goo, and put drops in. His lips look like someone took a blowtorch to them. I feared it was a result of our drive, but the nurse assures me it’s normal. I keep putting on things to soothe them, but big chunks of scabby flesh just fall off. I may never be able to look at a barbequed steak again. He is covered with scabs, bruises, flaking skin. His nails are long, and too thick to cut safely. He’s getting so thin, I can see the skeleton under the skin. In the last three days, he’s only had water and half a scrambled egg. This can’t go on much longer.

We are halfway through week seven, and I cannot remember how to live. I sit out the hot days, a prisoner on the deck. I sat for hours yesterday, alone, while Dad slept. I just sat and watched the puffs of mist from the bird sprayers dance in the wind, the breeze moving the tiny clouds as it pleased. Waited patiently for the mist to move in my direction, to cool me off, too tired to reposition myself. I am powerless to order it, I can only accept it, wait for it to grace me with the coolness. While I wait, I continue to watch the sun sparkle on the water down below, missing my life, grieving, my lashes wet with tears, the mist coating my cheeks.

July 1.

For days, it has been water only. Suddenly, he is hungry. Smoked salmon, raspberries, three crackers with cheese, a blackberry milkshake.

July 2.

I’m sitting in bed, stuck. Shit is starting to feel real now. He had pain last night, and had to have morphine for the first time. I don’t want to go downstairs. Sleep is so disturbed with
dreams, mosquitos, road construction racket, leg cramps. I want this to be over, but I know I’m going to be tromping through hell to get there, and “there” is no place I want to be. This “out of my hands” shit sucks.

Watching him try to get the cap back on his water bottle is like watching a monkey try to learn. He puts the lid on, spins the cap one way, then the other. Then he holds the cap still, and turns the bottle one way, then back the other way. I ask him if he needs help, and I receive a head shake and a curt “no”.

July 3.

I begin to keep more detailed notes, of everything he says, meds given, things he does. He is in and out of sleep, waking every ten to fifteen minutes to say something.

“Any company today? he asks. Are you looking forward to visitors? “No, no visitors.”
“I imagine there’s some sort of satchel. Right here…” pointing to his right hip. Do you need it? Does it have everything you need in it? No answer. He sleeps after speaking, eyes half closed.
He looks asleep, but his hands move over his body, feeling his ribs, running his hands slowly over his torso, his stomach.
Morphine at noon. “My body says I’m getting some candy.” His arms are up in the air, slowly moving back and forth, as if he were on the tarmac, directing the planes toward their gates.
Frequent urination, no stools. A relief, and a sorrow. The digestive system is grinding to a halt.
Calls me by my name. The correct one.
“I’m in a tricky spot. I don’t know what it is. A queen’s account. Turn back. I want to go this way.” Falls asleep, hands at right hip again, karate chopping…”Some action this way.”
“Come to this side.” His right side. He grips both of my hands tight, swinging my hands back and forth, his grip strong. I get a smile and a wink, and he falls back to sleep.
Clear as a bell, not whispered: “So, what next?” No response to my response, right back to sleep.
“So, should I be up?” Do you want to be up? “Yes, I suppose so. I want to be going, that way.” Raises his arm, motioning to the right. Back to sleep.
He wakes for a moment, gives me the patented tight lip smile…what he does when there is much to say, but it can’t be said.

The setting sun shone through the windows, making a rainbow in his white hair. I take pictures. It should be noted that he is positioned next to the windows, and to his right, across the water, lies the mountaintop.

July 4. Independence Day.

“Get the knives out.” “Take out the red flare.” “So, what’s next?” Even though it is afternoon, I get a “Good morning”. As the day wears on, I begin to realize that was probably the last thing he would say to me that I understood, and his eye-smile of this morning may have been the last time I was sure he recognized me. By the end of the night, when he opens his eyes, he either doesn’t see, or he doesn’t register. Doubled doses of morphine, to meet the rising panic in his voice. Mercifully, it acts quickly. Later, another double dose of morphine, mixed with CBD oil, and a crushed Lorazepam. He fights me, refusing to open his mouth, pushing me away with a stiff, surprisingly strong arm.

When he raises his hands in the air now, he clasps them together above his head, and slowly lowers them, like an evangelist giving a sermon. I turned his bed so he could see out the window, and today, when the sun got low in the sky, I didn’t block it with a sheet, as I had been doing. I let it shine on his face, and he slept in its glow. Maybe it will be the last time sunlight hits his face.

His hands are turning blue, and the mottling that has come and gone from his knees and elbows has come back to stay. His stomach has become so concave, he disappears into the bed, only the stiff diaper holding up the sheet. It’s day eight of no food, save for the last hurrah, the burst of energy day, three days ago. It’s day four of no water. And yet, he soldiers on. I spent hours today, sitting beside him, measuring his breathing. Nine deep breaths, fifteen to thirty seconds of no breathing, then a foot jiggle or a chin thrust, his body reminding him he needs oxygen, and the cycle repeats. I feel his pulse, which seems weaker tonight than it did this morning.

I have read everything I can find about the stages and signs, studied the lists, re-read, memorized them. I check them off, one by one. He is now refusing the mouth spray, and his lips stick together, so when he exhales, he makes a sound like “pohhh”. Eerily reminiscent of the pygmy owl call, “pohh, popopo”, but not staccato, just one small “pohhh” after each breath. Underneath, I can hear the beginnings of the rattled breath sound, the last dreaded sign.

I sat up with him all night last night, finally going to bed at 5:00 am, as it was getting light. The thought of him dying, alone in the dark, was too sad. I don’t think I can take another night of no sleep, sitting in a chair, so I have come to bed, at 1:30 in the morning. His departure is now between him and God, and if I am lucky enough to witness it, I know I won’t be a part of it. We have said our goodbyes, mine whispered through tears and hugs, his delivered via a wink and a smile. I’ve left some soft lights on, the up-light in the tree, and a Turkish lantern on the deck outside his window, making patterns and circles of light that dance in the soft breeze. The fountain trickles like tinkly music through the open windows, and the air is heavy with salt. It was a perfect day, and it’s a beautiful evening…a good day to go to Heaven. I can set the stage, but I have no directorial authority. For this, I am only a member of the audience.

For all my complaints about having no support or help before, now my family is coming out of nowhere. Encouraging me to “leave, take a breather.” Vacate my chair beside his bed, so they can take it. Where were they before? Now it feels self-serving, they want to be the one to be with him when he passes. I try to give them private time with him, but they are helpless to help him, and I have to constantly step in. They resent me for taking charge, they question my every move, want to know if the “experts” have directed whatever I am doing. I got in an argument with my sister a few days ago, because he had passed the time when water was beneficial, it was instead causing him pain, because his organs are shutting down. I had warned her specifically not to offer him any water, only give it if he specifically asked. Minutes after I left her alone with him, she came out and said he had asked for water. I knew that could not be true, had not been true in days, and when pressed, she admitted that she had offered some, and he had said yes. I was livid. They are shocked at the changes in the last few days, when they were too busy to come by. I resent their incompetence, their unwillingness to help with anything too close for their comfort, like putting on lip balm, rubbing lotion onto his arms. I resent the fact that they rely on me to figure everything out, then question me and call me bossy. I resent them trying to come in and take my seat at the end, when they have done nothing, trying to disguise it as concern for my well-being. I have earned that seat, with every single minute of every single day, for the last five months. And I will continue to earn it afterwards, every day, as I settle his affairs, and they have moved on.

July 5.

His fight manifests itself toward me, but I know it’s not really me he fights. Today, he lurched awake without notice, and lunged his torso over the side of the bed. When I leaned across him to try to pry his iron grip off the bottom of the bed frame, and to keep him from launching himself over the edge, he grabbed hold of my arm with superhuman strength, and I had to fight him as as drew my arm toward his mouth, his teeth bared like a lion, ready to take a bite. Having been bitten on the finger early on, I had no doubt he had the jaw strength to take out a chunk of flesh. He yelled as he tried to bite me, “John, John, come back! You’re hurting me!” I can imagine childhood tussles with his brother, John. As the baby of the family, he probably suffered much frustration. I have been told he was a biter as a child. He sobbed as we struggled, dry heaves, as I thwarted his last attempts to escape the bed that has held him trapped for months. I was alone at home with him, and afraid to let go of him. I called for my in-laws, hoping they were out in the yard. No one heard me, and I had to lie across him until he fell asleep again, and I could rush to the kitchen for more meds. From now on, I will keep them right next to his bed.

I feel like a detective, a chemist, a mad scientist, as I grind various pills and mix potions, seeking to relieve symptoms that can’t be described, but present themselves with clawing, clutching. Of pointing to his side and repeating “cave, cave, cave”. A seemingly incongruous word, but in reality, it’s spot on. The bedsore wound is a gaping hole in his back, the sides are beginning to crumble. Dark tunnels lead from the mouth of the hole, burrowing into him, leading to winding paths full of mystery, dank and dangerous. Full of creepy, crawly bacteria, eating into the foundation, as acid rainwater etches out a cave, drop by drop by drop. Miraculously, he has felt no pain until very recently, even as the nurses probed and mined for dead flesh. Now, however, though he is on morphine and haldol, he writhes under the nurse’s touch, as if she were flushing his wound with fire, not saline.

The sleepless nights of death watch are taking a toll. I am crabby, short fused, weepy. Sickly, darkly, the line from the Austin Power’s movie keeps running through my mind, like a song I can’t shake: “Why won’t you die?”

July 6.

I can’t believe how long this is taking. That you can only live three days without water is BS. Maybe in three days you begin dying, but the actual dying part seems to take forever, not 24 hours, give or take, plus or minus. There’s no crystal ball, but everything I read seems to be a lie. My dad is one strong MF, and his will to live and fight against what’s happening is incredible. Many things should have done him in by now: the infection ravaging his body, now running unchecked, insidious tunnels of destruction headed toward his vital organs. The dehydration, the kidney failure. Starvation.

I woke up in the morning, and set up camp in my chair next to his bed. I moved another chair to the opposite side, so the others could take turns sitting with him, as well. There is no more talking, no more flailing and fighting. His mouth hangs open, and his cheeks seem translucent. The death rattle is now unmistakable. His lips have finally healed, but his chest, hands, arms are all covered with spots, bruises, cuts. His hands rest on his chest, which moves up and down with his labored breathing.

I spend the day counting his breaths, tracking changes. My sister shows up, and the waiting begins. She has brought special crystals, for strength, and ease of passage, and she places them tentatively on his belly. I can tell she is waiting for me to shoot the idea down, but I am happy she has brought them. I place one between the fingers of each hand, so he can hold them. In the end, it turns out, the person taking the care has no time to gather stones, so it is left up to others.

My mother shows up, and we play musical chairs, me only reluctantly giving up my seat when I need to stretch my legs, fetch medicines. Every dose I give is questioned by my mother. Every time I get up, I pace the outside of the house in a circle, and on each lap, there are gifts: hummingbirds zip and hover. Blue jays call from the trees. The sun warms me, the flowers smell especially fresh. Twice, I find special feathers, in places there were none on the previous lap. The birds that have been watching over us are bringing offerings. Sherman is due to arrive also, but is running late. I worry that he will not be there in time, so I make a video, just in case. When he finally does arrive, we all gather around his bed, somehow knowing the end is near, and we wait.

Ruben has traveled out of town for a job, and we have told him not to come home, he wouldn’t make it in time. Marc and Carter are trying to give us privacy, but it’s a small house, and they are watching a loud basketball game. I make a terse request for the TV to be turned off, it is not the atmosphere I have visualized. I light candles. I reclaim my chair, and watch and count and listen. After days of stagnation, his bowels give way, so my sister and I hastily change him. His breathing gets more ragged, and fearing he will be uncomfortable, or panic, I give him more morphine. We are beyond the point where it may be too much. I decide to use the oxygen machine that has been gathering dust, and he fights it a bit as I try to get it in his nose, then he settles down again.

I signal for Marc and Carter to come over, and we all stand quietly, watching. I move out of my chair to sit on the window seat at his feet, and my mother takes my place, next to his head, where he would want her to be. He’s only been on the oxygen for fifteen minutes, when he opens his eyes, staring blindly up to the sky, with arms raised, as if he is reaching his hands out to the angels for help up. And then, it is done. His heart stops, and the body dies, followed moments later by the brain. 8:25 pm.

We sat and cried for a bit. Calls were made, hospice was notified. We cut locks of his hair to keep. I had prearranged for an autopsy, which is unusual for a hospice case, so there was much haggling by hospice with the medical examiner’s office. My mom and siblings had no interest in being there for the transfer of his body, and said their goodbyes. After a long wait, the hospice nurse and the medical examiner arrived, and we spent another hour going over the notes, me building my case, the medical examiner finally consenting to my wishes. He told me it was usual and customary for family to leave the room while the body was examined and put in the bag, but he didn’t realize who he was talking to. I never left my dad’s side. Marc and Carter helped wheel the gurney up the hill, his last trip, and their last act of loving help.

It was now the wee hours of the morning, and I had told Marc earlier that we could clean up the next day, but I was not ready to go to bed. I put a couple of things in boxes. No words were spoken, but Marc sensed that I needed to put the room in order, so he gathered more boxes and bags, and we boxed up everything for donation, stripped the bed, rolled up the air mattress, packed up the compressor that had filled the room with its relentless noise, unplugged and coiled the tangle of extension cords that had been tripping us for months. We washed the sheets, vacuumed, dusted. He needed to do it as much as I did, the first step in reclaiming our lives. I did not feel the slightest bit guilty about it.

July 8.

It is now time to process how to be a fatherless daughter, and for that, I need to be far away, and alone. Because I am my father’s daughter, I need to hit the road. And take the scenic route.

I woke up this morning, after another bad night of sleep, knowing that if I was going to go on the escape trip I had been planning, I should get going. Last night, I had gotten as far as vacuuming out my car, and removing the accumulation in my trunk of my dad’s many moves over the last four months. With a loose destination in mind, a subtle pull in the direction of Point Reyes, I had decided I would get on I-5, drive all the way south, then return up the coast. After Googling the route, and finding that I-5 was closed by wildfires in Redding, I took pause, and decided to sleep on it. I dreamt that night that I was driving my dad in my car, and we were surrounded by fire. I was panicked, not knowing which way to go, and knowing I could not get him out of the car myself.

I packed slowly, wondering if it would be better to just stay home, but knowing in my heart I really needed to go. I could not let the fear stop me, fear of having no plan, no reservations. Never mind my exhaustion level. I searched in vain for my hiking boots, poles, hammock, finally giving up. My usual lines of defense of bear spray, and my SPOT beacon, also nowhere to be found, buried somewhere in the garage, in the many as yet unpacked boxes. It took me half the day to pack, and when I could think of nothing else I might need, or could find, I hugged Marc goodbye, and headed out. On the way out the door, I stopped to check on my praying mantises once more. They have not hatched. I had been so convinced they were waiting for Dad to die, that they would emerge from their thin, papery cases, as he emerged from his. But not everything works out as I imagine it should, story-ready. Some things live long, happy lives, and some things die before they can get started. Such is life.

I had been on the freeway for all of twenty seconds, the traffic at a standstill, before I decided the I-5 South plan was all wrong. I headed straight for Olympia, and veered west. I may not get as far as I imagined I would to, but I know as soon as I see the sun in the horizon, this is the direction I am meant to be going.

The weather was perfect, my car’s cranky transmission finally settled down, and I eventually tuned out the strange noise coming from the front end. Marc was very wary of me driving my old car such a long way, but I was adamant. I drove in silence, letting my mind rest, and travel its own path. I enjoyed the scenery, the sunshine, the wind in my hair. I only broke out with sobs a few times, when I thought about how much my dad loved his drives, how much he would have enjoyed this one. I think, with deep regret, that I never took him on a long road trip, as we had planned. I had always imagined that when he was unable to drive himself, I would dedicate myself to taking him on trips, wherever and whenever he wanted to go. I had never factored in the realities of incontinence, legs that no longer cooperated, cavernous wounds that made sitting uncomfortable. I find solace in knowing that while he could, he went wherever he wanted to go, whenever he wanted to. That he enjoyed the solitude of the long drives, as I do.

I stopped many times to take pictures, read Heritage Markers. I far exceeded the number of stops that would be tolerated by any travel partner (except my dad), as I worked my way south into Oregon. It’s a good bird day; hawks, eagles, turkey vultures, pelicans, marbled murrelets posted up on a seastack south of Cannon Beach. A goldfinch, brilliant yellow against the lush green of Elk Flats. On one of my many stops, I started calling around to find a room in Yachats, and lucked out with a last minute cancellation. At an exorbitant price, but I take it anyway, happy for the freedom it gives me to go slowly.

My dallying and scenic detours cost me later, as after dark, I still have two hours to drive, to get to Yachats. I had promised Marc I would make smart, safe choices, which now meant no rest stops. By the time I reach the lodge, it’s long after lobby hours, and as I am fumbling with the keybox to get my room key, I can’t hold my bladder any longer, and I wet my pants, filling my shoes. By the time I have showered, and washed and dried my clothes and shoes, it is 1:30 in the morning.

The room is lovely, right on the ocean, and the window opens out to the crashing waves. The room is too warm to light the fireplace. I cannot sleep. I cover the clock, pull the shades down against the outdoor lights, unplug the microwave. If I could hang something from the ceiling to block the tiny light on the smoke alarm, I would. I crave absolute darkness. I can see the cresting, splashing waves, illuminated by the moonlight, and that is acceptable. The bed is too soft, the pillows too hard.

I toss and turn, and wake repeatedly, one bad dream after another. In one, the pillows I have wedged under my arms are my father, and I am holding him down, trying to keep him from floating away. In another, the medical examiner has nearly completed the autopsy, which is being performed at the foot of my bed, and the body is stretched out across my feet. I demand that it be moved, and the banging and clanging of the gurney against the heavy hall doors makes exactly the same sounds that my luggage had hours earlier, as I dragged it to my room. Another: Half awake, uncomfortable, I roll over in bed to my side, and my arm comes to rest on my hip, which suddenly feels like his skeletal frame. My mind mistakes it for his pelvic bone, sharp and devoid of flesh, the spot where I held him up on his side, for hundreds of diaper changes, for the nurse to prod and probe. I startled awake, happy, for once, to feel the more than ample flesh on my hips. The allure of past diets, where one loses a pound a day, no longer seems like a good idea, since the doctors include that in a list of signs of impending death. I could stand to lose (more than) a few pounds, but if each one will buy me another day at the end, I think I’ll hang on to a few.

July 9.

I only made it as far south as Bandon, with a slow start. I spent the first half of the day in Yachats, made a few stops in and around Florence. I was so tired, after no sleep. In Bandon, I pulled over in town, near the marina, and began calling around for a room for the night. Twenty-four options, and the first twenty-three are a no. The last, which I should have just started with, was Bandon Golf Resort, where I have spent happy vacations with my family. They had one room left, at the expected hefty price, but I happily took it. A night in a luxurious room sounded just fine. And safe. While I was parked, taking a few minutes to shift things around in my car, so I wouldn’t look like a hobo when I pulled up to the resort, my car was bumped from behind by two drunks, trying to park. I had just stepped away from the open trunk, to the passenger side door, when the car lurched forward. I thought for a second my transmission had finally called it a day, and was trying to exit the vehicle, when I remembered the car was not running. I turned to look, and the people in the car were just staring at me, too wasted to even back up off my bumper. I glared at them, with my hands on my hips, then finally had to yell at them to back the fuck up. They did, then started to pull forward and do it again. I yelled “…not another inch!”, then got in my car, and left immediately. I decided I would pay double to get away from there, and scary people. Safe choices seem to cost a lot of money.

I saw more wildlife on the long drive into the resort than I had seen all day. Deer, quail, racoons. From my balcony, overlooking the pond, I watched a beaver munch a path through the lily pads, listened to bullfrogs, spotted a harlequin duck, watched the deer stroll the lawn. I ordered room service, and locked myself away for the night. Before going to bed, I spent an hour looking for a room back in Florence, just in case I decided to head back that way. It wasn’t very expensive, and I figured I could cancel it if I went the other direction. It took a long time to fall asleep, but no bad dreams, finally.

July 10.

I awoke a little more rested. I ordered room service again for breakfast, and stayed in my room until checkout time. I was missing my boys, so I spent a few hours going to each of the pro shops, sending them pictures of hats and shirts, to buy for gifts. While I was heading in to one of the pro shops, I asked a caddy, who was taking a break, if the coastline going south was as scenic as the north. He assured me it was. I finally hit the road at 1:30, and headed south.

After my chat with the caddy, I had it in my head that I would go to Crescent City, then cruise through the Redwoods. Keep heading south, maybe visit my niece in San Francisco, maybe make it to Point Reyes National Park, which had been my original destination. But something kept nagging at me. I was still so tired. I kept pulling over, Googling the route. Two hours to Crescent City, the first hour all inland. Many more hours to the California Central Coast. If I made it to Crescent City, then turned back the other way, it would be two hours back to Bandon, and a few more back to Florence, where I knew I had a for-sure room. I had told Marc I was thinking of turning back, the trip was turning out to be so expensive, but he encouraged me to do what I needed to do. I pulled over again and again, completely unsure of where I should be heading. More Googling of routes, then the discovery that Highway 101 was blocked by a slide, and the Redwoods inaccessible.

As I sat beside the highway, digging deep for insight into what it was I was truly needing, I realized what I was in search of was grandeur. Natural wonders, things previously unseen. I wasn’t going to get that if I turned back. As much as I love the Oregon Coast, it was been there, done that. A detour, then: head east to Sedona. I had no set return date. Maybe the Grand Canyon? I had never seen it; this was the level of awe I desired. But I-5 was still closed by wildfires, and from where I was sitting, the only available route was an 18 hour drive each way. I was so tired, just driving to a hotel felt like a monumental task. Feeling a bit defeated, but resigned to respect all the signs that were literally blocking me from proceeding south, I turned around, and headed back toward Florence.

I arrived in Florence in time to visit my favorite shop, and bought a bead bracelet. I ate dinner at my usual dockside restaurant. It was too windy and cold to sit by the marina, and watch for sea lions, so I reluctantly headed to the hotel, which I had passed on the way into town. It was very, very old. Historic old. I checked in, was confirmed as having paid in full the night before, and given the key. I was already suspicious about the place, based on the lobby, the ancient parrot in a huge cage, bird dust everywhere. I was put off by the lecture in advance about not putting any of the bath linens on the floor to stand on. I was eyeing the rickety wooden staircase that led to the guest rooms upstairs, wondering if it was safe. Then the manager told me that my room was “down below, behind the building.” Uh oh.

I got back in my car, and drove around the building and down the hill, to the lower parking lot, as instructed. I pulled up in front of what looked like a basement storeroom, with a sliding glass door for the entry. As I got out of the car, I was approached by a homeless man, smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke in my direction as he tried to chat me up about my car. I brushed him off as politely as I could, and he disappeared around the corner of the building, on a little trail. On the road behind the hotel, there were many cars parked along the street, clearly homes on wheels. I went into the room, and took in the fact that the bed was ancient, it was in full view of the sliding glass door, and the curtains would be ineffective. I touched nothing, walked back out, got in my car, and drove back to the lobby. There was a different person manning the desk, and the manager was on the phone in the background. I told her no disrespect, but I did not feel safe there, and would not be staying. I did not bother to wait around to haggle for a refund. My error; I should have realized that $228.00 on the Oregon Coast during the height of the tourist season would be a roach motel. It was already 7:00, but I decided I would rather drive all the way home, and sleep in my car, if necessary, than sleep in a room that disgusting.

I started calling everyplace in Yachats I knew, and lucked out again on a last minute opening. A nicer place, still old, but clean. So tonight will cost me more than any night so far, since I have now paid for two rooms, but so be it. I have faith I will keep winding up where I am supposed to be. If I can offer any travel tips for make-it-up-as-you-go excursions, here are two: The manager told me when I checked in that they always reserve a few rooms until the end of the night, in case they accidently get overbooked by third party online sites, and that at a certain point in the night, in my case after 8:00 pm, they open them up for last minute walk-ins, so it pays to keep calling back. The other advice would be that if you are going to go down the Oregon Coast in summer with no advance reservations, rob a bank before you go.

I checked in, unplugged the microwave, called the front desk to clear the messages so the phone would stop blinking at me. I tried, unsuccessfully, to remove the screen from the window. The usual tasks. Marc will attest that I am a pain in the ass, when it comes to unwanted lights, blockages to fresh air and views, and phantom sounds in a motel room. Or buttons. Many years ago, on what was supposed to be a non-stop drive home to Seattle from Southern California, we had to stop in the middle of the night at a roadside motel in the Siskiyous. Marc had gotten sick from taking a No-Doze, so I was driving. I was so tired, I began to hallucinate that bears were running across the road in front of the car. At 2:00 in the morning, out of fear of killing us both, I insisted we pull over at the next motel. We crawled into bed, and discovered that the mattress was studded with buttons, dozens of them, covered only by a thin sheet. So, I made him get out of the bed, and I methodically pulled every button off the mattress, and piled them on the nightstand. We had only been married about two years, and he was probably wondering if he could make it to three. I have been mockingly called the Princess and the Pea ever since. Anyway, I gave up on removing the screen, but was very happy for a window that at least opened wide. I sat and watched the waves for a very long time. It felt good to not think, and be hypnotized by the surf. I finally willed myself to move, and took a long, hot shower in the dark. I had made it through the whole day without crying, and not thinking too much, but now, the flood gates were open.

I missed my family. I missed being home. Marc had told be that two birds had come into the house today, a hummingbird and a chickadee. Maybe the birds miss me, and are looking for me. The universe has literally put up blockades to nudge me back in the direction of home. I have been out searching for proof of life, evidence of the majestic, reassurance of the power of nature. A message from God that there is a heaven, and he has my dad and all the loved ones I have lost, safely tucked away there. I realize I can find beauty in the small things, awe in the colors and smells and sounds everywhere, anywhere I go. I have witnessed the breath leaving my father, witnessed the moment he surrendered and left his body. What more could one possibly need to see, to prove the miracle of life, than to witness the moment of death? It has not yet sunk in that I have been shown a profound moment. I’m out looking for the tallest trees, the deepest canyon, a breaching whale dancing in a tidal wave. Anything that can provide some context, a backdrop that can equal the magnitude of what I have witnessed. Something that can measure up in size to the shock I am feeling, to wake me out of my numb state.

I also realize that I am prolonging the inevitable, that my father cannot be cremated until I come home. I have to gather my sister and brother, there are papers to sign, costs to pay. Buttons to push. Just as I was my brother’s guardian, and my final gift to him was to be there when he was cremated, it is my last custodial act to my father, to witness the completion of the destruction of the body he has shed. I will push the button, I will stand there and feel the heat, listen to the furnace blast to life. I will watch the flames through the porthole. I know he is long gone, but for some reason, I need this closure. I asked Marc recently if I have an unusually high tolerance for the macabre, and his reply was an emphatic yes, but even so, this time he says he will come with me. Maybe I am an emotional adrenaline junkie. Like a mountain climber or cliff diver, but with experiences. To heal, I need to peel back to the rawest of feelings, so I go looking for opportunities to really feel. And then I try to understand them, by writing about them.

So while I was too tired, or too blocked, to write anything meaningful for the last few days, as I sat in the shower tonight, in the dark, in danger of overheating under the scalding shower, I realized two things: I needed to get out of the shower, and write, before my thoughts disappeared down the drain with my tears. The second thing is that wildfires and landslides have blocked my path for a reason. It is time to go home, before the house fills up with birds.

July 11.

For the first time in months, I had slept through the night, and awoke refreshed. I was convinced it was because of the squishy pillow, the type I normally hate, so I took it with me when I left, something I would not normally do. I drove north, along the coast, stopping whenever I felt like it, to take pictures, get snacks. I stopped in Seal Rock, looked for seals, and got fish and chips at Luna Sea, where I sat outside, wrapped in a blanket. The sun was out, but the air was cool, so I had all the picnic tables to myself. I stopped for a bit in Depoe Bay, to watch for whales, but no luck. I drove through Tierra Del Mar, and dreamed of buying a cabin with a garden, overlooking the bay. I turned off at the Three Capes Scenic Route, for more seal watching on the spit, and toward Pacific City. I still remember the first time my family drove that route, how mysterious and other-worldly it seemed, with the dunes piled high on either side, windblown sand covering the road. I pulled into the public parking lot overlooking the beach at Cape Kiwanda, and watched the kites. Needing to stretch my legs, I walked out to the beach, and looked up to Cape Kiwanda itself, a huge sand dune, rising up to meet the blue sky. Above it, a hang glider hovered in the warm air rising off the dune. Suddenly, I knew that the next place I needed to be was on top of that hill.

It was late afternoon, and I knew that if I hiked to the top of the hill, I would be exhausted, and probably in no shape to drive late into the night. Next to the parking lot was a fancy resort, and I thought, what the hell, why not try for a room. As it turns out, the people who plan way ahead get the moderately priced rooms. The really expensive rooms don’t go so fast, so people who stumble around with no plan can often get lucky, if they are willing to pay the price. They had rooms available, but the only drawback, they had a minimum three night stay. I asked to see the room before I would commit to that high a bill. They said because of COVID, they were not allowed to show rooms. For the first time, I pulled the sympathy card, told them I had just lost my dad, and was on a healing trip. That I needed to see if this place spoke to me, if it was where I needed to be, spiritually. They consented, and gave me the key. When I entered the room, and saw it was probably the most beautifully designed room I had ever seen, I called the front desk and told them I would take it. They also agreed to let let me stay for two nights, instead of three. The idea of staying put in one place, such a nice place, was sounding better by the minute. I had called Marc earlier in the day, to say I was headed home, but now called again to tell him that I would be gone a few more days. The hotel had a nice restaurant, and one opening left for dinner, so I sat alone at a window table, and enjoyed a delicious dinner. I went back to my room, took a long bath in the lovely tub, with the fireplace on, the haystack rock visible through the deck door, the setting sun putting on a glorious show.

July 12.

I loaded my daypack and headed out to the beach. My knees are fully shot at this point, so climbing the sandy dune was probably a very bad idea, but I don’t usually let that stop me. I went slowly and carefully, trying not to let my feet slide or twist a knee. I made it to the top, and found a place to sit, high on the sandy dune. It was so peaceful. The sun was quite warm, I had a view of the crashing waves below me, and I could see into the giant sea cave, where the bright red on the feet of the nesting pigeon guillimots glowed in the dark. I spotted seals, cormorants, marbled murrelets, scoters and terns. Pelicans dotted the bluff above the cave, and would periodically take to the air in droves, circling high above the cove, but right at my eye level. I stayed in that spot for three hours, baking in the sun, filling up my senses. When the wind came up, I wrapped myself in a blanket, until it died down again. When I was out of water, and thought I could take no more sun, I headed back, picking my way down the dune, through the tide pools, and along the wrack line, looking for treasures left by the tide.

July 13.

I have spent the last few days and nights resting, beachcombing, sitting by the fireplace, taking baths, ordering room service, sitting on my deck and watching the waves, the water, families on the beach. When I needed a change of pace, I went to the spa, and sat in the hot tub, inquired periodically if they had any cancellations for massages. I got lucky, again, and cashed in on a no-show. I spent hours, not moving, just letting my mind wander. I poked around the resort, admiring the art, the architecture, the landscaping. I love places where every detail celebrates art, nature, craftsmanship. I am feeling much more rested, a little more like a human being. Ready to be home and begin the work of re-engaging with my life.

The drive back was nice, I hugged the coast for as long as I could. I arrived home in the late afternoon, and as I came down the steps, I stopped, as I had done every day for months, at the table outside the front door, and lifted the lid of the praying mantis container. I had not completely given up hope, but had low expectations. I was shocked at what I found, and had to take a very close look…inside, in the tangle of wood shavings, there were ten tiny praying mantises, looking up at me. As I had hoped all along, they had come, just when I needed them. There was another surprise gift, above the fountain: a blue jay feather hung suspended by a strand of spider silk, bouncing in the breeze, as if to catch my attention, and welcome me home.

July 16.

A tough day. The medical examiner had finally released his body, and he was cremated today. Marc went with me; it was a comfort to have him there. Having been through it once, I knew what to expect. This time, I watched through the peephole, until the flames were all consuming.

When we got home, I immediately checked on my praying mantis project. Only a few more had appeared each day, since the hatching had started three days ago, though the instructions had said up to 200 per egg case were possible. Today, of all days, was the story-ready ending I had felt would come. The timing was not as I had ordered, they did not appear at the moment of his death. Instead, following nature’s own timetable, and the mysteries of coincidence, they had waited for the day on which my father’s body was reduced to ashes. Inside the container, there were hundreds of tiny insects, filling the nesting material, covering the sides of the container, clustered thickly under the screen of the lid, seeking exit, anxious to feed. I carried the container out to the deck, and began releasing them onto the rose bush, into the nasturtiums, which were loaded with late summer aphids, and would make a splendid buffet. I was soon covered with mantises, crawling on my arms and legs, jumping into my hair. I couldn’t have been happier.

I spent hours outside, releasing a few at a time, showing them to the boys and Marc. I inspected the egg cases, from which hung hundreds of miniature, dried empty egg sacks, dangling like a fine lace, trembling in the breeze. As delicate as the ashes of my father, rising in the intense heat, as he was released into a new life. I thought about how Dad would have loved studying the hatchlings alongside me, watching them through the magnifying glass, smiling at them marching in a parade along the deck railing. I hope he was watching his daughter from above, feeling gratified that his love and fascination with nature had been passed on to me, and I was passing it on to my sons.

I will always be grateful for the times we spent, looking for rocks, inspecting sediment layers, watching birds, scouting rivers, spying on comets and constellations, driving around at dusk in Montana looking for bears, picking up volcanic glass, beach combing and driftwood hopping in every kind of weather. For every drive that we went on where he pointed out and named every mountain, every river, every valley, so they are seared into my memory, and I keep a map inside my head of our beloved state and all its treasures. My education began at birth, and continued for the next 59 years. From my earliest memory, before I was two, of him gently helping me stand, my tiny arm stretched under the split rail fence, as a newborn lamb sucked on my finger, nearly every memory from my childhood that involved animals or nature, included him. Standing next to me, or holding me up to get a better view, or telling me to follow the line of his outstretched arm, pointing out the orcas, or the deer eating fruit off the tree in the yard, or the tiny birds, nesting in the cavity of the cherry tree. Observing nature, marveling, seeing God in the smallest of details. I will always treasure the nights we spent watching the fishing boats from our deck, or the sunset on the last nights of summer, the snowy mountaintops of the Olympics displayed in a glorious panorama, across the water. How absolutely lucky and blessed I am to have had so much time with him, and to have learned so much. About nature, and life, and unconditional love. About optimism and faith and hope. About how to live, and how to die. How to receive the lessons that arrive on silent wings. How to accept answers that may not be what we prayed for, but are the answers that come, nonetheless.

Credits and references:

Featured Image (Owl and Raven) Reprinted with permission of the artist, Sam Zimmerman, Crane Superior Studio, cranesuperiorstudio@gmail.com; Instagram: cranesuperior

(Owl, Moon, Mountain, Woman) Reprinted with permission of the artist, Paige Pettibon, www.paigepettibon.com/blank-page; Instagram: page_pettibon

“Why I Write”, Joan Didion, New York Times Book Review December 5, 1976, Page 270

“I Heard The Owl Call My Name”, Margaret Craven, Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1967 ISBN 0-440-34369-0