Four years later, the last day still stings

Aug. 5, 2019. A day I’ll never forget, and one full of memories that I’d rather not remember.

Like any August day in Kansas, it was hot as hell. As I had been for the previous three weeks, I slept, as much as I could anyway, in my father’s recliner. Dad lay next to me in the hospital bed designed to provide as much comfort as possible.

Just a few days earlier, I woke at 3 a.m. to find my old man trying desperately to get out of bed. He reached over to grab the railing and attempt to pull himself up. It struck me that it looked like he was trying to start a chainsaw, as I’d seen him do thousands of times in better days.

That was really the end of whatever “freedom” my father had. He could no longer get out of bed on his own. By then, however, we’d attached a bell to the railing so we could hear when he was getting up because we were doing all we could to prevent a devastating fall.

Dad went back to sleep after I helped him use the bathroom, something he despised. It was the last time he got out of bed. By the next day, he was essentially comatose. His ability to speak was gone. He wasn’t turning his head. It was the exact opposite of how he wanted to finish a fascinating life.

The following day, on Aug. 4, I was up and ready to hit the gym. It was one of two things that served as a break from the deep sadness – the other being watching TV and eating ice cream drumsticks with my brother and his family every night – of watching my dad, who was more active than just about anybody in their 70s, wither away.

As I got up to leave, I told my sister-in-law that I was going to hit the gym, and she asked me if I was sure about leaving, even for only two hours. It was one of those “shit’s getting real” moments. It was her way of saying, “Your dad is going at any minute.”

Instead of going to the gym, I went for a three-mile run on the dusty, baked dirt roads that connected my brother’s house to my father’s old place. I was only gone for 40 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. I constantly worried I’d return to find that my father passed.

It wasn’t until the next day that he finally left us. I’d been up for a few hours, sitting next to him, trying to ignore the gut-wrenching sound of his death rattle, a hideous constant for more than two days at that point.

As noon approached, I sensed that Dad was going at any moment, grabbing his hand and telling him it was OK to leave through a cracking voice. My sister-in-law came in and sat next to him, as well, grabbing his other hand and saying the same thing. She’d been our hero for several months, caring for the old man as if he was her father.

“Ernie Bill (there’s that hillbilly nickname I picked up as a child again), will you please go open the windows in this room and in the bathroom?” she said.

I asked why, at first not remembering the belief that opening the windows allows one’s soul to escape to the heavens. I hurriedly opened them and rushed back to my father’s side. Within seconds, he was gone. There was intense sorrow in that moment. But there was also relief. Dad had suffered enough.

It’s been four years now since that life-altering day. Sometimes that seems like yesterday. Sometimes it seems like decades. But the memories, good and difficult, will always be fresh.