‘Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.’
– Word Porn
Growing up in the foothills of the Adirondacks and working for a year in Lake Placid, I saw Mother Nature work her magic spectacularly a majority of my life. There would be vibrant reds, oranges and yellows exploding from the branches of trees under the light of the sun. Part of the beauty of fall is that you never knew how long it was going to last. You knew that your window of opportunity was finite and there were very little clues as to when that window would close for good. Fall was my favorite season but that all changed last year.
When I got the initial phone call days before it didn’t register. They were the standard issued lines and conversations you’d hear leading up to a climatic scene in a dramatic movie – not things you say about our family, about Dad. C’mon – these are Terms of Endearment or Beaches kind of words. We don’t use those kinds of words in this family. Faster than anticipated…hospital bed…hospice…get here as soon as you can…comfortable. (After everything, in a attempt at normalcy I would play a quiet drinking game where anytime some one would say ‘comfortable’ or ‘at peace’ a sip would be taken. It quickly became apparent that it would not be a long term game due to but not limited to the threat of embarrassing my family by saying things that I really wanted to say, alcohol poisoning or worse – my mother’s wrath. My mother’s wrath when she’s not grieving her spouse of 50 plus years is epic already so I knew enough not to tempt fate this time. No worries though – the pasta would pick up where the booze left off). I heard the words but I didn’t listen to them. I understood them but I didn’t believe them.
After that call, day by day I could feel my heart cracking. I thought about what life was going to be without him and I couldn’t fathom it. I thought he can’t just ‘go away’. He can’t just disappear from my life. He can’t not be there on Sundays for our weekly FaceTime chats to tell me about the deer in the yard that he fed or how we are sharing the same sunshine, giggling every time it would be shining through their windows and not mine. Or give me the play by play of how the birds are fighting over the food in the bird feeder. How am I supposed to go through the rest of my life without seeing his head tilt back plastered with a huge smile, laughing at something ridiculous (and most likely somewhat inappropriate) that I did or said and saying “Pa-treesh-aaaa”? He had wanted to scold me in some way I’m sure, but he found the humor in whatever it was and enjoyed it. He was always one of my favorite audiences.
I packed up Lupita and flew back landing in Buffalo and making the three hour drive northeast to home. I’d made this trip hundreds of times before but I knew that this wasn’t just a trip home and that when I traveled back down this road again, everything would be different. Vastly different.
The sides of the thruway were bursting with the same colors in nature’s palette that I loved, but they didn’t seem as vibrant as I had hoped they would. My mind was going as fast as the car – ‘Be strong, keep it together, you don’t want him to see you cry. Remember what he always says ‘In a crisis your sister will cry and you will be making jokes’. Make jokes. Keep it normal…well as best as you can. Just don’t let him see you cry because it’ll make him feel worse. The others will be strong, so suck it up. Don’t be the one to make it worse than it already is.’ This was my own little pep talk I had on repeat in my head for those three hours.
It failed miserably. Apparently, one cannot pep talk their way through legitimate heartbreak. Well, at least this one can’t. The hurt in my heart was just beginning.
Pulling into the same driveway, to the same house to be with the same people just as I have a million times before I quickly realized that I was running out of ‘sames’. From this point forward, nothing was the same and it wouldn’t be again. This was the start of an ending that would be the beginning of something else. And I knew that when I arrived back there this time, there was going to be another lesson in growing up.
Walking in the usual way, I saw a typical evening sight of Dad in his recliner, wrapped up in a huge, soft, gray blanket. The sight was familiar but the lack of energy was not. The arrival of any of his kids would at the very least, illicit a giant swing of the chair and a smiling face to say hello. More often than not though, he would already be at the back door greeting the traveler with a big hug and a smile. That day, all I got was a turn of the head and a slight smile. I was the last of the kids to come home. I was the last one he had to accept his reality with.
I did my best to hold the emotional fort down and I almost made it down the entire hallway between the kitchen and the living room before the ugly cry started. In an effort at comic relief, I had released Lupita from her leash and let her go barreling in ahead of me. She promptly jumped up on Dad and licked his forehead. As funny as it was, all it did was turn my ugly cry into a laughing ugly cry. Immediately my face was just a Jackson Pollack painting of tears and snot smeared across a scare faced jack-o-lantern. I wanted to crawl onto the chair into his lap and hug him and tell him how sad and mad I was and how much I loved him. But I didn’t. I sat on the couch across from him, petting Lupita until I’m pretty sure she was almost bald as I talked about my flight and the drive. Anything but the giant, brazen elephant that was not just in the room but sitting on my Dad’s lap instead of me. Small talk had no place in the room but neither did that damn elephant.
When I think back on those next ten days, I don’t remember everything but I remember the feeling of it all being such new, unchartered territory. The good living room where we had spent every holiday and family dinner enjoying drinks and hors d’oeuvres and laugher was now draped in an invisible cloak of somberness. A hospital bed was placed where the Christmas tree would be in December, every year prior and every year since. I learned that one of my coping mechanism would be cooking which would lead to a five course dinner practically every night. I remember thinking that I wasn’t strong enough to go take care of Dad without being emotional, so I would take care of those that could take care of Dad.
Early on, the local priest came by the house to give Dad his Last Rights. From the kitchen my niece and I heard the welcoming of him by my mom and sister at the front door. I stood at the counter in the corner of the kitchen with my head buried in whatever appetizer I was trying to perfect for everyone. I didn’t want to go in the room with them. That would make it closer to being real. I felt like going into that room and witnessing those words and actions would make it real and I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted my Dad to bounce back and be well. I knew when my sister charged into the kitchen telling us to ‘Come in for this’ that it was real.
Begrudgingly we went into the good living room. After exchanging polite pleasantries with the priest with Lupes under my arm I sat on the couch directly across from Dad. I kept my eyes down on purpose so not to make eye contact with Dad. I didn’t want him to see me acknowledge the elephant.
After the ceremony was done, the small talk continued as mom, sister and the priest chatted away. I remained seated on couch and looked at my dad through them all and without saying a single word, we knew what the other was thinking. It wasn’t about what had just happened or what was going to happen, but he saw the frustration and anger in my eyes and with a little wink and the tiniest smirk with a shrug of the shoulders, he said, ‘Me too“.
There were moments like that over that next ten days that I will always remember. Dad could have a very dry sense of humor and was by most people’s standards a very formal man. At one point, I was sitting with him as he slept and when he woke up, he asked me if there was any melon left. I went into the kitchen and while we were out of melon, we had plenty of bananas. As such, I cut up the banana into bite size pieces and put them in a glass dish and served it with a napkin, as I’ve been taught to properly do. I sat next to him and explained that the management sends their regrets but we are all out of melon and hoped that he would enjoy a lovely banana instead. Again, with a quiet, simple smirk he took the dish and began to eat the banana bites. Two bites in, without turning his head, he looked at me and said “Are we out of forks too?”
Despite it being home, when you stepped into the good living room the doorway there was an unspoken border where the outside world ceased and this new, short term world began.
On one side of the border, the outside world was where everyone’s normally scheduled life continued. Facebook updates and grumblings about Mondays and traffic coexisted with exciting news and elementary school pictures. The election season was full swing at this point so that whole dose of reality was the equivalent of getting slapped in the face repeatedly by a wet flag at 30 mph every 15 minutes.
On the other side of that border, marked by two wooden pillars was The Good Living Room. It didn’t matter what was on the TV in the other room, literally 15 feet away. When you stepped past the entryway, the changes were palpable. The shades were drawn so it was darker and shielded people from the street from looking in. We spoke in hushed voices and soothing tones around him, whether he was awake or sleeping. Everything was done in an attempt to make Dad’s exit from this world a calm and peaceful one.
Prior to everything, I don’t remember the last time I held Dad’s hand but I know that when I did, he squeezed it back. Maybe it was the time I got caught stealing a pack of gum from the drug store and he spanked me and took me back inside to return it. Or maybe it was when I got stuck in the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese and they had to get the stick to get me out. Or maybe it was after I got stuck out in the middle of the ‘lake’ at Water Fun Village and the lifeguard had to come out and retrieve me. I don’t remember when I stopped holding his hand, but I remember the time he couldn’t hold mine anymore.
Things progressed as events like this inevitably do, regardless of how many filo wrapped brie wheels and roasted chickens you make. Dad had stopped responding to us and was passing right before our eyes. It was Saturday night, around 9pm. My sister on one side of Dad, me on the other and one brother on the couch behind me. As he laid there, motionless for the most part with his arms relaxed out on either side of himself, I leaned in and put my hand under his. I was hopeful, but more likely in denial of the blatant truth in front of me, that he would somehow give my hand a squeeze. Not a full on, curl his fingers around mine but just a little something to reassure me, to comfort me.
But he didn’t. So I did. I did what he couldn’t do and I wrapped my fingers around his and I gave his hand a squeeze, to reassure him, to comfort him. To hopefully let him know that I was there with him, that we were present in this moment together. And as horribly painful and sad as that moment was that we were in, we were there together.
The hospice nurse had said that he could still hear everything but just wouldn’t be able to respond. I didn’t find solace in that as I just imagined Dad being trapped someplace in between his physical being and his spiritual being, scared or frustrated that we couldn’t hear him. I didn’t want him to feel that no one could hear him and I didn’t want to think that he couldn’t hear me. I turned music on softly so that neither of us would have to speak but we could share the music. The album I played is an acoustic album from one of my favorite trance DJ groups, Above and Beyond. They took their club sounds and put together a beautiful set with a live orchestra and band at the Hollywood Bowl. It was traditional and modern at the same time. It was my dad and me all at the same time.
‘I‘ve been counting down the days and the nights,
Since you last said that you loved me.
And it’s cold here in the shadows with no light,
Since you last said that you loved me.
Time is like an enemy leaving lovers by the side,
The more you cling to love, the more you’re gonna lose your mind.
All I feel is sadness now,
Taking over, taking over, taking over.
All I see is black clouds of doubt,
Taking over, taking over, taking over.”
~ Counting Down the Days
In my head, I pictured us listening to this album under different circumstances. I saw us sitting at the kitchen table, Dad in his usual chair, back to the windows with his legs crossed and his left arm on the table, gently tapping his fingers. I’d be sitting on the other side of the table from him, just watching him for his reaction as we listened. Dad would be asking questions about the group and the music and what it was like to experience it in a club or at a festival. And we would share that music and we would share that sunshine and we would share that memory. I would look back on that daydream of a day and smile, the same way I smile when I think of us watching Antique Road Show together and how he joined me when I turned it into a drinking game of High/Low. And the same way I smile when I think about him hugging me tightly and calling me ‘punkin’ or his ‘baby’. But instead, I think about that time we shared this album in The Good Living Room. He didn’t have a reaction and he didn’t ask questions. And instead of smiling, I cry. I didn’t cry then, but I cry now. And I hope that he knows, in some way, shape or form, that we shared that moment regardless of how far away we were from one another.
Another day passed and we were told that Dad would be passing soon, but soon is really not a true measure of time when someone is dying. Soon could be soon or it could be three days from then. Regardless, ‘soon’ would always be too soon. The fear of ‘soon’ kept us all close to him throughout the night and into the morning until the afternoon of Sunday, October 30th.
Just as the standard obit line says, he died comfortably in his home, surrounded by his family. I had stood there with one hand resting on his right shin, on the spot where his freckles met his scars. I didn’t know where to put my eyes – I didn’t want to see him go, but I felt that I needed to. Barely raising my eyes I scanned across him and I saw the hands he married and hands he helped to create. It wasn’t a planned gesture it just happened. And I’ll never know if it was to ease his body and spirit as he passed or for us to find solace in one last touch but there we all were. Silent and sad.
The stillness and quiet didn’t last long as the need for a sense of normalcy was kicked into high gear. Dad was taken to the funeral home and within minutes the hospital bed was gone, supplies were packed away to be donated to another family helping their loved one go and phone calls were being made. Not by me. Nope, I wasn’t talking to anyone for quite a while. Except for maybe Lupita.
The next day leaving the house for the first time in a long time, reality hit me like an ice water bath on a hot summer day. So jolting that it almost knocks the wind out of you as it simultaneously wakes you up. The world that I had known for the past 38 years was completely changed and this was the first full day of the new ‘normal’. It was Halloween, my favorite holiday, and I was grieving my dad.
The mall was packed with trick or treaters which under other circumstances would make my heart happy. Seeing little kids encouraged to lean into their greatest imagination and dreams, dressed in all their costumed glory. But my heart wasn’t happy and elated, it was gutted and there wasn’t a Buzz Lightyear or Loveable Lamb that would be able to make it swoon that day, not even for a second. I was a simmering volcano of anger, red hot and bubbling beneath the surface never knowing when it was going to explode. I was mad at everyone that day. I sneered at the people who smiled when they met my eyes. I practically growled under my breath at people when they laughed. I was irate with the lady at the JCPenny Salon who graced me with a set of commas floating above my red, swollen eyes making me look like I was surprised to be sad.
I had every right to be mad. But I had zero right to be mad at those people. I had no right to be mad at the kind, unknowing stranger who saw the sadness in my eyes and gave me a smile when I couldn’t find one. I had no right to be angry at the people whose laughs were to remind me that I’ll laugh again as carefree as they do. I had every right to be mad at that JCPenny lady though. If someone asks for a clean up, don’t go getting crazy with the hot wax and little coffee stirrer stick! That’s just avoidable.
The next evening, rocking my new hot pink shoes (Dad would’ve said “Wow-wee those are some pink shoes!’) and my new comma brows, I volunteered to be the first in the receiving line for the wake. As a hospitality professional, I felt that I was a natural to welcome people and then seamlessly, like the good hostess my parents raised, make any necessary introductions and keep the line moving. Being the youngest of the four children, I would introduce them to my niece and nephew and gently pass them over to the other siblings, in reverse chronological order. After my eldest brother they would pay their respects to Mom and finally to Dad. Two skills that every hospitality professional has are to be able to reset their reaction with every interaction and to offer a smile even on the darkest of their days. This was the equivalent of the hospitality Super Bowl and I was going for MVP. I did what I thought Dad would want: allow for the appropriate amount of tears (‘no blatting’), make everyone feel welcomed and share a laugh or two. Mourn the death but celebrate the life.
Dad died and is buried in the same town in which he was born. Married to my mother for 51 years, they had four amazing children, two of which added spouses to the dinner table as well as a granddaughter and grandson. That’s the short version.
The full version walked through the doors of that funeral home that evening. It was a cast of people from all walks of life and ages coming from places 6 minutes away to 6 hours away. There was family and friends and friends that were family. There was the cast of co-workers with whom we reciprocated admiration for finally putting faces to names. More often than not someone whom I had never met would come into the line and say “Oh, you must be the baby! You’re father would talk about your siblings and then he’d smile and say….And then there’s Patreesha.” The shoes must’ve tipped them off.
Probably 100 people made it one of their priorities to take time out of their day to stop and share a hug, a story and maybe a tear or two with the family of this kind, generous and funny gentleman. I think that for Dad, that would’ve been the greatest compliment to a life well lived. That and the genuine shock from people when they found out his real age.
Moving forward as life, and apparently death, does we gathered together for the funeral the next day. All of the rainbows that I saw and smiled at the night prior were gone again, under the clouds of what was to come.
Built in the early 1800s, the church where Dad’s funeral took place is truly a beautiful work of architecture. However, I didn’t pay attention to the cathedral ceiling or the beautiful stained glass windows or marble altar that day. I don’t remember the mass itself but I remember the walk up and back down the aisle. An aisle that seemed to be the longest and the shortest aisle all at the same time. I remember every single step. My hand on the casket and my eyes straight ahead or staring at the same green and brown marble that was under my feet at my First Communion. I didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone in the pews for fear of breaking down in tears in the middle of that aisle. I learned a lesson that day. It doesn’t matter why you walk down a church aisle by your father’s side because at the end of the day your life will be changed forevermore.
For me, there wasn’t any respite from the emotions that day. From the church to the graveside burial, my tears flowed continuously. I felt so helpless. I didn’t want to leave him there. But I didn’t want to see him go into the ground. I wanted to run away and stay all at the same time. So I stayed but ran away to the far back seat of my sister’s car and wept. Sobbed so hard my chest hurt and my back ached from being curled up so tightly. I wanted to be alone but the best I could have was the three block commute from the graveyard back to the house, where people would be gathering for a reception.
That was a year ago, the day that ‘the same’ was reinvented. I think about him every day and I miss him, tremendously. I look for touches of him in every single day. I hear him when I spell my last name to someone over the phone the way he did. I see his smile and hear his laugh when we are all gathered together around the dinner table sharing a joke. The memory of him calms me when I am sad or stressed. And as I sit here on this patio writing this in the warm Texas sun, it makes me happy to think that somehow, someway, we are sharing the same sunshine.
Because All the Other Jobs Were Taken. 