“I just want it to be over,” my father said to me last week.
“I know,” I replied, nodding my head. I sat facing him on his bed, where he lay back on pillows propped against the headboard, upholstered in a pretty botanical print that my mother had picked out over twenty years ago. The blue eyes staring at me were watered down versions of their original cobalt color. Under the sheet, his once strong body had withered to half its size. He hadn’t eaten solid food in three days.
“How long can I go without food?” he asked me, knowing I would tell him the truth.
“I don’t know,” I answered, “But I can google it.” I pulled out my phone and looked it up. “Ghandi lived three weeks,” I said, reading from Wikipedia. “A strong healthy body can go six weeks, with enough liquids,” I continued. “But you will probably only last a week.” He nodded, satisfied, and gazed out the large windows to the lake, which shimmered like liquid metal under a cover of clouds. A large crow landed on the gutter outside and stared knowingly at us through the window. My uncle, who communicated with animals the way my father did with people, had called down the crows for his little brother.
I knew my father wasn’t scared to die. Although he majored in philosophy and religion, he also believed in reincarnation, straddling worlds and opportunities in his typical fashion. But he was worried about leaving us behind, and that made a lingering death more tortuous. “This could drag out a while,” I said to him, reading his thoughts, “and I’m not allowed to shoot you.” He nodded, his expression one of child-like disappointment. “Anyway you can’t die today because the Reynolds are here. Don’t you want to say goodbye to your best friend?” I asked.
“I guess I should,” he replied.
“I think it would be the polite thing to do,” I said teasingly. “They did fly up to see you.” He smiled then, and my heart twisted. I hadn’t allowed myself to cry yet. I was too busy managing visitors and hospice and medication, and watching over my mother, who hated to be watched over. My children had left the day before, wearing some of their grandfather’s favorite clothes, ears ringing with last words of the high expectations he had of them. I was grateful they could see him before his body and mind had completely powered down. When he could still get up on his own, breathe independently, and use the bathroom. When he could still recognize people and speak coherently. I couldn’t bear them to see how this bigger than life grandpa could be so quickly reduced to limp flesh and faulty circuit board.
My father died at ten o’clock last night. Today would have been his 79th birthday. Now I can cry. For the loss of a man who made me into the survivor that I am. The man who was my safety net, who loved the people I love indiscriminately, who supported my choices. He was my beacon, and now the light has gone out. I feel very blind in the dark at the moment, but I know in time I will find another way to light my path, even become a beacon for my own children. Because he taught me how.
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