I walk into room 111, unsure of what I’m going to find. I hate that my husband can’t be here with me, but his company will only give him one day of Bereavement Leave and we can’t afford for him to take any additional days off. So, I made the five-hour drive from San Antonio to Fort Worth, Texas with my two-year-old son, dropped him off at my mother-in-law’s and rushed straight to the hospital. My mother is the first person I see when I enter the brightly lit room. She stands to hug me, her energy drained. Her husband, Alvin, is lying in a bed, dying, and she still had to go to work today. It doesn’t seem fair.
“I’m so glad you got to come,” she says, her eyes finding their way back to my step-dad. I follow her gaze for a moment, but she steps in front of me and grabs both hands. I try to ignore the flicker of the fluorescent bulb above his bed. “Just so you know, he looks much different. I just want you to be prepared.”
My stomach clenches, even more nervous than before I walked in. But I nod, and close the gap to Alvin’s bedside to hug my step-sister, Pamela. She is firmly planted in her seat on the other side of his bed, with no sign of moving. She reaches up one arm, the one not clung to his hand, and hugs me back.
I am not sure what I was expecting when I look at him. When my mom called and told me that the doctors said Alvin was in his last days, I suppose I expected to see him propped up in a sparkling clean hospital room, not a stale nursing rehab center because the hospice center didn’t have an available bed. I expected crisp white sheets neatly tucked around him, instead of the dingy, stained sheet gripped in his hands, a pale, thin leg hanging out of the side, and a loose hospital gown draped over him, revealing his graying skin as it clings to nothing but boney shoulders and a chest plate. I think I expected to be able to talk to him as he peacefully slept, to tell him everything I’ve ever wanted to say but you don’t say because, unless you are in a movie, it is not normal to pour out that much emotion without making yourself and the other person feel uncomfortable. I expected to be able to sit by his side, alone, hold his hand, and tell him what a great step-father I thought he was. I wanted to thank him for always treating me like his own, like the way he got so upset with me when I wouldn’t leave my abusive ex, but still stayed up with me all night letting me vent about my pain and made me the best breakfast I have ever had just to make me smile. I wanted to tell him that I couldn’t have imagined anybody making my mother as happy as he made her and that I don’t know what we’ll do without him. I wanted to tell him that I do not know the rules of heaven, but that he has to promise to visit our dreams so we still feel like he is here and not gone completely.
But all the false scenes crumble when I see him. This is not the man who could crack a joke in a morgue and probably have the corpse laughing. This is not the man from my mother’s stories from high school, who propped his dissection frog up in the corner of the box in Biology, crossed its legs, and stuck the scalpel between its “fingers” like a cigarette. This is not the gentle giant who could creep down the dark hallway at their house and scare the crap out of me when I lived there.
No. There is not a trace of humor left in his Santa-Claus-like face. My once 6’4”, 300 lb., teddy-bear of a step-father is lying before me like a skeleton, half his weight eaten away by the cancer. An air mattress supports his frail frame because a regular mattress would cause him pain.
I try to find something recognizable about him: his eyes, his hair, his beard. But his eyes are hidden behind sunken, shadowed lids. His hair grew back a different texture and color than before. Instead of the long, wiry, salt and pepper hair of which he was so proud, it is white, wavy, and cottonlike. Almost his entire beard is covered in coarse, white curls, covering his slack jaw as his mouth hangs open at an unnatural angle. But this is not what bothers me the most. It is the sound of his ragged breaths and the way the air gurgles, swimming through the fluid in his lungs.
I look first to my mother, feeling like a child who needs an explanation, something to comfort me. She tilts her head knowingly. The appearance of her husband no longer surprises her. Instead of being a five-hour-drive away, like me, and barely able to see him more than twice this past year, she has seen him every day, tracking the slow decline of his body and spirit, worrying about his every movement and groan, day in and day out. She was the one who would receive the calls from him while she was at work saying he had fallen again because he blacked out from malnutrition, or that he tried to drink a smoothie, but ended up dry-heaving the moment he tried to swallow because the radiation that was meant to save him destroyed his esophagus. She had to watch him waste away and be told nothing more from the doctors than, “He needs to eat.”
After his third hospital admission, he never went back home. They admitted him to the rehab center, hoping that, with some help, he could regain his strength. One day, last week, he started having trouble breathing, so they did an MRI. The cancer was back and it had spread to his lungs and liver.
A mere six days ago, he was talking to my mom. They were processing the news together. And now, I’m staring at a man who is heavily medicated so he does not feel the pain.
I fight back tears, swallowing the lump in my throat. I miss his gruff voice, so full of character. I wish he would look up at me and yell, “Gotcha!”
I realize I’m standing in my mother’s place. I clear the lump from my throat and pat the seat. “Mom, sit, please,” I say. I want my mom to have all the time she can with him. She is already sharing time with my step-sister, not getting any time with him alone in his last hours; I do not want to steal anything from her. I move to the only other place to sit: across the room at a lonely table with two of my step-sister’s childhood friends who are here for support, but awkwardly scrolling through their phones, not knowing what to do. I get it. I wouldn’t know how to act either.
As I sit, I think about my husband and if I had only days or hours left with him. I would want to lay with him one last time, rest my head on his chest, hold his hand and imagine that he was holding me back.
I watch my mom take his hand in hers ever so gently. She looks upon his face with such love, it is like she is pouring all of her love into one look in hopes that he can feel it.
The hospice nurse bustles over and softly pinches his wrist. Her jaw tenses and she avoids my mother and sister’s worried stares. She grabs her stethoscope and listens carefully. After a long, silent moment, she sighs and places the earpieces around her neck. She turns to my mom and squeezes her hand. “His pulse has slowed considerably. It probably won’t be long.” She retreats to the corner of the room to allow us our last goodbyes.
From seven feet away, I watch as my step-sister and mother give him all their adoration. They whisper their love in his ears, tell him it is okay for him to let go. When I hear them give him permission, I secretly hope that he hangs on just a bit longer, so I can find a moment to say goodbye myself, to give him one last hug. But I have to wonder if I will get that chance. Who could I ask to move? His daughter? His wife? I have never felt more like a STEP-daughter than I do right now. No rights to his bedside. Until now, I had always felt like one of his children. But I cannot justify displacing either of them.
I check my phone to see if my husband has texted me—I miss him—but the moment I look down, my mother and step-sister dissolve into tears, both laying their head on him, my mother on his chest and my step-sister on his arm. I jump out of my chair confused.
“Oh no!” I hear one of my step-sister’s friends whisper. I run over to my mom. Is he gone? Did I miss his last breath? Did I miss my opportunity to get a last living touch or one last word while he might still be listening? Did I miss my chance to tell him that I wish I could hear him call me “Sweetie” once more in his prominent Texan twang?
The hospice nurse rushes over, stethoscope ready, and listens to his heart. I watch him, holding my breath, waiting to see his chest rise once more, praying I’ll hear him force another gulp of air, but nothing comes. He is just … still.
The nurse nods, meeting each expectant gaze. “He’s gone,” she says gently.
And that is it.
I have always heard how seeing someone pass away is supposed to be peaceful, especially when they were suffering. There is peace, I suppose—his peace. But, for me, there is only panic and chaos. I run outside and call my husband. I feel like I am going to be sick. When he answers, I try to tell him what happened, but my chest caves involuntarily drawing in huge gulps of air, and I sob deeply while he calls, “What happened?” over the phone.
On the way back to the hotel, I cry uncontrollably as images of him lying cold and still flash through my mind like a horror film on repeat, and I’m thankful my son is already asleep and my mother-in-law offered to keep him overnight. Though my head is pounding and my eyes are so puffy I have no choice but to close them, I still cannot sleep. I shake throughout the night as if I am lying on a block of ice. My stomach turns constantly and I jerk awake to phantom sounds in the room. The whooshing of the air conditioner has somehow transformed into Alvin’s ragged breaths, and the beeping of his machine echoes in my mind. So, peace? Not for me. I am not sure how long it will be before those images and sounds fade. I do not know how long it will be before I can think of him as the tall, portly, jolly man we all loved. But I know he is at peace; and if I have to endure this internal trauma in order for him to rest, then I will carry that weight. The sorrow will never fully diminish, but neither will his memory. At least one of us is at peace and he truly deserves it.
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