Sacrifícium Deo spiritus contribulatus: cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise
Backwards again. A week before he died.
My sister called me at work early and suggested that now would be a good time for me to leave early and visit my mother since she's been in tears since 7:04am that morning when my sister, playing with her dog (a pop-eyed, flat-faced Pug), says something dippy and baby-talkish like "My sweet sweet boy, what would I ever do without you?" and my mother, close to losing her own sweet sweet boy starts to cry, which starts my sister crying, leaving my father in the other room listening to the two of them crying, which would probably not have improved his mood if he wasn't wacked-out on that morning's first dose of hydromorphone (which, at the time, I believed to be morphine cooked with water and some kind of binding agent, making it tantamount to crack).
By the time I talked to my mother, she was not in good shape, which was new. The weeks before had been pinched, serious, painful. That morning, I heard the cracks and exhaustion. And it was one of the few days during my brief time at the Government of Ontario where it would cause serious problems for my continued employment if I leave suddenly (there was a performance review at work that day, I had to both be reviewed and to give feedback for other staff). I called Abby and used my sister's approach, suggesting to her that now would be a good time to visit my parents, since one of them sounds close to losing it and the other is on increasingly short borrowed time.
The night before was a bad one; my father couldn't lie still, couldn't get comfortable, expressed great upset at having (imaginary) contractors all over the house, an unlikely occurance at 3am on a Thursday, what with overtime being what it is.
He had also mentioned politely that all of the doors in the house had been hung upside down, we might want to talk to somebody about that.
This type of handyman hallucination had been happening repeatedly. My cousin Sam and I listened to my father sigh patiently a few weeks before, saying "Alright, if we're going to do this, we'd better start soon. We can get most of the panelling up before we take our late dinner," pretty much out of nowhere.
I think I said "Dad, we're going to call it a night, since you're already in bed. Why don't I get some more tea for Sam and a ginger-ale for you?" and the topic was dropped.
Abby and Patricia became the Batman and Robin of palliative care, they dropped everything and drove to my parents place, apologizing for my delay and offering my mother anything she wants. Which calms her down.
By the time I got out of work and made it to the house, my mother was stir crazy and leapt at the chance to head out for more hydromorphone and an hour of peace and quiet. I sat beside my father on the OHIP endorsed inflatable bed, the white-noise of the pump actually soothing me, it something that doesn't require thought. Music took too much effort; I remembered a long-ago novel, 'The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God,' some passage about a teen driving to a potentially horrible date and refusing to turn on the radio, not wanting to associate those tunes every night the rest of his life with a bad scene. I was stuck to that, and anything that wasn't moment-by-moment coping wasn't of any interest anyhow.
He was on a self-enforced clock. Every 3 minutes he changed position, opened his eyes for a few seconds, closed them and tried to sleep. After a few minutes he stretched out his hand towards me, so I held it. Then he pulled away. The process repeated itself a few times, before he opened his eyes and looked at me as if to say 'Why are you holding my hand?'
This routine is further augmented with him saying "George? Five," or "George? Seven," and it hit me that my dad was back in Derbecker's Store, in the thriving metorpolis of Neustadt Ontario, making change for customers and stocking shelves. It was probably 1953 or so, just then, for him. Or somewhere else; at one point he wakes up, stares at me and says "George, will you need the rake? And keep on the left side of Mt. Pleasant." I tell him I've got the rake and I'll keep on the left side. He goes back to sleep.
Eventually he wanted to walk, as far as the den. He tried to sleep on the couch, but his head slid off the pillows and he was too weak to lift it. He winced and asked for George. I propped him up at one point, and he said he wanted to go back to bed, as soon as I took the fire out. Right there, he says as he pointed to a new lump, on his neck and be careful, it's hot.
There was no response from me. I told him I'd try, and took him back to bed. He was passing a lot of gas at the time; there were air fresheners everywhere so the room had an atmosphere of pleasant green apple and farts. My mother returned, and my aunt arrived shortly thereafter, lying as always, saying she's was just dropping by for 5 minutes and staying 3hrs.
This wasn't a bad thing - we needed the extra support. And for reasons I can't quite fathom, she brought 3 dozen boxed finger sandwiches from the Pickle Barrel. Those little soggy things; egg salad, tuna, smoked salmon. This was her idea of a treat in the face of crisis, and the assembled throng did set upon them, and the room soon smelled like farts, soggy egg, soggy tuna, soggy smoked salmon and pleasant green apple.
My aunt was trying to be supportive, but there's was a crisis which made her feel that (temporarily, to be fair) she was in a position of authority and was being proactive. The soggy sandwiches turn my stomach, and I go into the kitchen to warm a can of soup and found that I'd been followed;
"Michael! I've got sandwiches! Have one!"This could have gone on for hours.
"Thanks, no. I just feel like some soup."
"They're good sandwiches! Take some home! I don't want you making a mess for your mother!"
"I'll deal with the dishes, thanks anyhow."
"You don't have to deal with anything! I brought sandwiches!"
"Don't care for egg or tuna."
"There's salmon! You like salmon!"
"I'm sure they're great. I don't eat salmon either."
"Michael, you're fibbing. I've seen you eat smoked salmon. At Alan’s. At Christmas."
"Ginge, I'm having some soup. Do you want some?"
"I don't want your mother to have a mess!"
"I'll take care of it. Now shut up and let me make some soup."
"(crestfallen) I wish I'd known. They have little roast beef sandwiches. Would you eat those? I'll know for next time."
I made soup and ate it and was ready to ignore her. But she behaved and I did the dishes and something close to normality hung in the air for a few minutes.
_________________________________________
The next day, I called the house from work, and was delighted to actually get my dad on the phone, fairly lucid, propped up in the den, watching TV, eating (very slowly) a chocolate chip cookie and working on a bowl of applesauce laced with ground-up Hydromorphone (doctor's suggestion). She told me that my father's four siblings and their spouses were on route from rural Ontario. I offered to show up as support, she says that one more person in the house would be a bad thing, but thanks for the offer. I go back to work.
By around 2pm, my uncle Moody calls and is very interested in how I am doing, he wants to talk about Abby and my work and anything that isn't my father. My mother comes onto the phone and says that he needs distraction and could I perhaps tear myself away from Ontario's Ministry of Transportation a few hours early after all?
I email my boss and the people I'm working for, give them several phone numbers where I can be reached, insist that I am going to my sick father's bedside and not to the movies, and get a cab.
By the time I got to the house, my father had apparently managed to have a conversation with his family for around half an hour before starting to fade. Pain in his left eye, headache, backache, shakes, nausea. He winced and covered his eyes as the Neustadt Ontario contingent chatted gently around him, talking about the new Pastor and how pretty everything is now that the thaw is starting.
Moody finally says, very quietly, "Maybe Johnny should go back to bed. I hate to see him suffer."
Johnny was taken back to bed.
Moody took off his glasses and slowly picked up a magazine, holding it less than an inch from his face. At first I thought it was to conceal tears, but there were none forthcoming. The intense and sudden interest in Dogs Monthly somehow prevented the tears, or at least created a disraction that wasn't a dying brother.
We all deal with stress in different ways.
The conversation wandered. I assured Marion that dad was getting good care, I let Moody compose himself, I explained the difference between flour and egg dumplings and milk, baking powder and flour dumplings to Eunice (they had eaten my stew at lunch), and told Art where he can find Fibber McGee and Molly broadcasts on the internet. Everybody leaves happy (if that's the term), or at least hoping. Moody held my hand tightly in a handshake but wouldn't meet my eyes at the door.
An 80yr old trying not to cry looks very much like a 6yr old trying not to cry.
When I call from work the next morning, everything is terrible.
He didn't sleep. Wasn't making sense. Couldn't get comfortable. Wouldn't eat or drink. Couldn't take his medication, it hurt too much to swallow.
A doctor was en route, but there was a possibility that he would end up back in hospital that same evening. If that happened, he's clearly wasn't going to make it out. It was down to a matter of days. I realized that I could have counted hours if I had wanted that much horror. I tried to prepare for hospital visits, and high hopes for an IV, morphine, and dreaming of 1953.
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