Our family was gathered around his bed, the nursing staff had prepared us over the previous four days and we knew once the oxygen had been removed he would slip away. This was his third bout of pneumonia in nine years and the two previous attempts to kick in the door of oblivion had failed.He used to joke that he just couldn't kick it hard enough.
The first bout was on my fortieth birthday and the second a few years later. He proved how strong he was despite his being disabled. But this time it wasn't to be relief and convalescence. A chest infection had brought the old lion down and it was only the nurses and doctors hard work that gave our family time to gather, understand and prepare.
At the last I stood by him and held his head in my arms and spoke to him about all of us being there and that things would be okay and he could rest now. I felt him slowly slip from me over the thirty five minutes it took once they removed the oxygen; for that great heart to slow and stop. I have not taken it all in yet. It's nearly twelve weeks and HE is gone. There is never a moment where I can fool myself that he's still here and we can have one more conversation but I can only think about it in little bits.
As a writer, there is a terrible feeling of always being an observer. That tool that allows you to take it all in, to gather the snippets, the atmosphere, the smell and taste of the air and slip it into some recess of your mind. You secretly never quite give in to the moment, not even when that moment is one you have been dreading since you first understood that the great ancient ones would leave you behind. Even at the moment he had stopped breathing, his face showing a restful expression, when the family began to cry I was the observer. I halted them; "His heart," I said. "It's still beating." Feeling the powerful pulse under my fingertips as I stroked his neck, cradling his head in the crook of my arm, my lips close to his ear. I then told him how much we loved him and how it would be alright, everything was alright. His heart didn't falter, stumble or fade - it stopped, in one crushing stillness.
The details of when, what, who etc. are for another time and place. The tightening in my throat is becoming in-swallow-able. I must wait to write it down in full, to bring is out and purge the loss in words when there has been enough distance between that hospital bed and my heart.
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It took a week after his passing that I realized. I said it out loud like a petulant child.
"Dad won't be here when I get my degree."
It was a truth. He won't. The man that always asked how I was doing and what I was working on; who showed the most enthusiasm for especially my autobiographical writing and the writing for children courses will not be here to see the end of the journey. It breaks my heart....my selfish, childish, arrogant heart. As if my accomplishment should make him stay when he cannot! Ridiculous. But what makes the lump in my throat rise again is knowing he would have been proud and, if he'd have known he wasn't going to be here, he would have been genuinely sorry - and my petulance shames me; a man of 49 years old.
So I am grateful. The strength he showed all through his life, his example to all his children and grand children, allowed me to help my Mum and family go through the funeral, to start adjusting to life without him and to gather the final course submission together and submit it for assessment and submit it weeks after he left us.
I have finished. I await the completion mark for the course and the degree; constantly wondering what he would think. I know what he would do. He would punch the air from his bed and tell me well done. He would be "chuffed" and ask how long has it been and gasp etc. Because it has been a long time with a lot of hard work.
But then, after a few moments and probably knowing him, over a large cup of tea, he would look up and, with a twinkle in his eye, he would ask "So, what's next then?"
I am grateful to him, for him and his strength.
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