Lab Results - Chapter Two

As a reminder, this post is the second part of a three part series.  The first part, Chapter 1, was posted on October 20, 2016.

Lab Results - Chapter 2

I may have rescued her from life in a cage but soon realized that Puppet had adopted me.  She couldn’t talk but her teaching never suffered for the absence of words.

Dad.  Atlas may have shrugged but Dad never did.

I’m going home.  Those were the words my Dad said every time I walked into his hospital room.  He said them every time – every time until that day in early January, 2005.  This time, we could skip past the ritual of me having to tell him that he could go home when the doctors said he was well enough.  To which, he would grimace, then smile.  The grimace was the only wrinkle ever visible in his unflagging good nature. 

On this eighth day of January, unseasonably warm and sunny, his bed was cranked all the way up into a sitting position.  He held a newspaper meticulously folded to the crossword puzzle in the back of the Sports section.  His glasses, one of many pairs whose lenses were scratched and smudged, had slipped well down his nose as he peered intently at the crossword clues.  Only the skish-skish-skish shuffle step outside his door interrupted the white noise from the monitors, oxygen tanks, and beepers of Four-West.  Dad cocked his head and nodded toward the door, “One of the inmates – probably needs more toilet paper,” as if incarceration was the most apt description of the geriatric wing.    

Instead of telling me he was going home, he said, “I’m having trouble making out the clues in this tiny type.  Can we do this one together?”  I couldn’t have been more pleased even if manly decorum kept me from showing it. 

“Of course,” I said and scooted the institutional green, cracked vinyl chair next to his bed.  I lowered the safety rail so we could sit almost shoulder to shoulder.  He handed me the puzzle.  Oils from his fingers had smudged some clues.  His shaking hands made ink run well outside the boxes but none of that mattered.  Even if I had to make up clues, we would do this together.  “Eight down.  It’s a seven letter word for marriage.  We’ve got the first letter – W,” I said.  He thought on it, watched the golf tournament on TV, then turned his head toward me and asked, “Do you know what it is?”  I answered, “I’m working on it.”  He said, “Me too.”

A few minutes passed.  He dozed or his mind wandered.  He might have been recalling one of those memories we all keep to comfort us when new memories don’t come easily.  Then he turned toward me with an impish grin and said, “Wedding.”   “That works,” I said.   After I made a show of writing the word in, I said, “Fourteen across.  It’s a six letter word and the clue is: the goal of a diet.  You just got the third letter, a D.”

So it went for an hour or two.  We solved a few words and the talk was easy.  My Dad had the gift of making every talk easy even when the subject was hard.  On that day he was fully Dad.  I said, “It’s time for me to go.  Mom said she’ll be here tomorrow.  You get some rest and I’ll see you soon.”  He smiled, then said, “I’m going home.”

I took his hand like two men shaking with strong grips and looking each other in the eye.  This was how we hugged.  As we held that grip, I said, “I’ll check with the nurse about your lab results and the doctor about when he’ll be ready to throw you out of this place!”  With our eyes still fixed on each other, he said, “Don’t forget what we agreed.”  I nodded and said, “I’ll see you in a couple days.”  With a final squeeze of our hands, I left his room.

Most Saturdays Winnie and I would eat out.  This warm January evening was a mid-winter respite and a perfect time to share a meal at a nice restaurant.  Our conversation turned to the baptism of our second grandson scheduled for the next morning.   Half way through dinner, my cell phone rang – the hospital.  “Sir, can you come to the hospital right away?  Your father had passed but we’ve been able to bring him back.  We need you here.”  Incredulous, I asked, “What happened, he was fine this afternoon?”  And quickly added, “You did what?  Don’t you see the DNR on his chart?  I’ll be right there.  No machines!  Have you called my mother?” In a cracking voice, the nurse only answered the last question.  “Your father’s wishes are clear.  We are to call you for all decisions and you will talk to your mother.” 

Driving to the hospital, I said, “I can’t believe it.  No one should have to die twice.  I know the nurses and doctors instincts to cure and save take over, but I promised Dad.” Mom had to be told.  I called her.  “Mom, Dad is in bad shape and they’ve called me to the hospital.  Winnie will come and get you after she drops me off.”  Silence.  “Mom, I’ll be waiting for you.  Please get dressed.  Winnie will be there in fifteen minutes.”

I ran up the hospital stairs.  His room was littered with tubes and bags, gloves and towels – the detritus from reviving a code blue patient.  The monitor was ominously silent.  Dad was in the bed, blankets rumpled and his arm splayed out at an inhuman angle.  I grabbed his hand – like men shaking hands.  A nurse ran in but stopped short as she saw me standing next to his bed with his hand in mine.  She whispered, “He passed a couple of minutes ago.”  Dad was gone.  Did I do the right thing?  If I had not pointedly asked about the DNR could he have been revived so Mom could have seen him alive once more?  What about the agreement Dad reminded me of only hours before? 

There would be no answers that night.  I squeezed his hand, tucked his arm to his side and pulled the blanket up under his chin.  The exposed ashen face left no doubt that my Dad was no longer present in the body that had finally failed.  He had gone home.

I stayed with Mom.  Her fragile mental condition was stretched to its limit when her sixty-four year marriage ended.  In some ways, she would always blame me for taking him from her that night but such blame would soon take its place as one among many angers as dementia stole her mind from her soul. 

Puppet, good friend, guru.

Days later, after the funeral, I finally returned home.  Puppet had spent all of those days beside the door.  
                                                                                                                --td

Chapter 3 - Coming soon.