Text: (from my life-long friend)

Hi Kari, I just got your dads update, I am so sorry that he is having to go through all of this.  I love you my sister and I am praying for a peace that surpassses all understanding!

My response:  It’s really bad, doesn’t look like he’ll make it through the night – blood in lungs, blood pressure super low.

Her response:  I’m so sorry, he just can’t catch a break:(  please let me know if you need me… Call me anytime day or night.  I love you so much, give your dad a big hug for me.  I’m so sad:(

My response moments later:  He’s gone

Her response:  I am so sorry Kari.  I love you.

 

My Reflections:

(late tonight)

Papa’s gone.

And there we stand by Papa’s bedside… and he’s gone.

What does one do at a time like this?

I mean what does one do, logistically, at a time like this?  Here in a hospital room with our loved one who is no more, but who’s body is still very much here?

A nurse comes over and asks if we have a funeral home in mind to call.

We don’t.

We haven’t lately been in the habit of familiarizing ourselves with local funeral homes… we’d been too focused on helping Papa to live.  Such morbid practicalities of focusing on preparing for his death have definitely not been on our radar.

The nurse suggests a certain funeral home that’s nearby, she doesn’t know too much about it, but is willing to get us the number.  I appreciate her kindness, yet find it odd that the job of calling the mortuary just moments after Papa’s passing falls on our shoulders.

Really, is this the usual protocol for this sort of thing?

And yet who else should I expect to handle this?

While the nurse is gone, I call Mark to let him know Dad is gone.  And I’m met with no static this time, just an automated female voice informing me that my call cannot go through due to service being down in the area in which I am trying to reach.

When does this happen?  Cell phone service completely being kaput in an entire area?  And of all places.  And of all times.  Now?!

Can I really not get through to Mark at a time like this?

With a heavy heart, I do the only thing I know to do.

I text him.

I send a text to Mark to let him know that “Dad is gone.”  And I hope it somehow gets through to him even though a phone call can’t.

Yet I wish I could have called him to let him know.  Because what a freakin’ way to find out your dad’s gone than through a text.

Nana & I briefly talk about what to do next.  I say something about a funeral and Nana looks at me a bit surprised, wondering if we really need to have a funeral.  Papa’s wishes, after all, have always been to be cremated with as minimal expense and fanfare as possible.  He was too practical to desire anything more – he knew where his soul was going, no need to make a fuss over his left-behind body.

But I quickly dismiss the idea of not having a funeral, inwardly shocked that would even be a consideration.  Papa’s wishes or not, of course there must be a funeral for our sake as well as for all our friends and family.

The day, this 63rd day, is almost over, and I feel the need to let our friends and family know now of Papa’s passing, before this day ends.  Somehow in my current state of mind, I determine that the email must go out before midnight so as not to confuse people about what day it is that Papa has died.  And I know people are praying and wanting to know what’s going on.  I know I’d want to know what’s going on.

Before I send the email though, I want to let Papa’s siblings know.  So I go in the bathroom in Papa’s room where I can have a bit of privacy and I make the call to Papa’s brother, Papa’s baby brother (who really is quite grown up by now).  I think I’m doing ok and strong enough to make such a call, until the words come out.  My uncle picks up the phone and I tell him it’s me and then the words “He’s gone” rush out like a torrent, it’s all a mess and my voice cracks and I’m crying and I can only imagine what a horrible way this must be for my uncle to hear that his big brother is gone (although I suppose there is no non-horrible way to find out such news).  I choke out the words asking him to call his siblings and let them know – I don’t want them to have to find out about it via an email.  I can tell my uncle is a bit blindsided by my news and my stellar delivery as well, saying he’s so sorry (yet I can only imagine while also having his own heart breaking).

And I wish there were someone else here to handle such calls.  Calls (or text) to son and siblings and mortician.

Tonight we’ve had attending nurses, and cardiac doctors, and pulmonary specialists, but where’s the morbid-tasks-after-death specialist when you need one?

No where in sight, that’s where.

This sucks.

Badly.

The nurse comes in with the number to the funeral home – that funeral home neither Nana nor I knows anything about.  Thankfully, Nana is willing to make this call.  She does, handling it much more gracefully than I would have at this present moment.  From what I can gather, she’s obviously woken up the mortician with her call (it is quite late, after all).  The first few moments of the call are awkward, to say the least, as the mortician gets his bearings.  But then things smooth out a bit.  Yes, he’ll send out his guys to get Papa’s body from the hospital.  They should arrive in two to three hours.

Two to three hours?!

Is this normal?

We have no idea, but we go with it, what else is there to do at a time like this?

With Mark texted and siblings called, I send out an email to the rest of our friends & family:

Dad passed away late tonight.  His complications with his pneumonia progressed quickly and the doctors/nurses did all they could.  He went peacefully with Mom & me by his side.  Mark had made arrangements this afternoon to fly out tomorrow.

Will let you know funeral arrangements once we know them.

Love,

Kari

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Somehow the line about him going “peacefully with Mom & me (I) by his side” sounds like the right thing to say.  Since Papa was sedated during the most intense moments leading up to his death, he did go peacefully in the end, there was no sign of struggle or pain.  Yet I know “went peacefully” doesn’t begin to tell the half of it, blissfully leaving out the chaos and trauma of the scene leading up to Papa’s final breath.  I wonder how many times I’ve heard similar lines from others about the passing of their loved ones, and how often I’d ignorantly painted a picture in my head of family gathered around a bedside whispering their goodbyes as their loved one quietly took his or her final breath… I wonder how many times this picture was worlds away from the turmoil leading up to death, the family shell-shocked, world-rocked, at what they’d just witnessed.  Yet I understand now why they would word it as such. I understand how, in the moment, it’s best to leave out the hard details.  After all, the news of death is bad enough….

Soon after I send out the email, I receive an email response from a friend:

Oh, Kare, I’m truly sorry for your loss. It’s weird about the time.  Right before then I was praying for him…and had a strange feeling of peace about everything sensing that this might be God’s timing in his life.  I know this is hard and you are pretty private about your feelings. Let me know if you want to talk or get together…even to just escape into a movie or a chore, cleaning, maybe?…I can come by your way and help you clean or watch kids and not talk about it.  Please let me know what you need. 

---

 

Crazy, but I have that strange feeling of peace too, even in the midst of the pain & shock.  As hard as this is, as horrible as it is, if I’ve sensed anything tonight, I’ve sensed that this was Papa’s time, his time to go.

More emails will come, but I don’t take the time to read them just yet.  The cardiac doctor that had been attending to Papa since he arrived in the ICU, returns and lets Nana & I know how sorry he is that they were unable to save Papa.  All night this doctor has been all business, a bit cold, but now I can see a touch of tears glistening in his eyes, I can hear a touch of emotion in his voice, and I can tell he’s truly, sincerely sorry.  That this is hard on him too.  He did all that he could do and he’s lost a patient in his care.  Not an easy part of his job.

After the doctor leaves, one of the nurses follows.  And she tells us that Papa’s attending nurse, the one we’d first met with in Papa’s room when he arrived in the ICU, is very shaken up over Papa’s loss.  How this attending nurse is one of their top-notch nurses in this unit and she’s taking Papa’s death very hard.  That neither she, nor any of them, would ever have imagined that when Papa came in tonight that they’d lose him just hours later.

Nana expresses her thanks to the nurse, as she had to the doctor as well, over how she appreciates all that they had done for Papa that night.  And I agree.  I’m grateful for the sincere concern shown by Papa’s doctor and nurses.  In the no-frills atmosphere of this hospital, there is also warmth, and that’s important in a moment such as this.

And in this moment, I’m also grateful that Papa is home.  In a now-perfect body in his heavenly home, the place in which he was so longing to be.

I’m reminded of this when some nursing assistants come in to “clean up” Papa.  We’re asked if we’d prefer not to be in the room as they do this, but Nana & I choose to stay.  I find it a bit futile to clean up Papa’s body when it’s only being picked up for cremation, but in a way, I’m glad for the respect or dignity or whatever this obviously “standard procedure” adds to the situation.  Nana & I continue to discuss details and such as the two girls sponge-bathe Papa in the background, and I don’t pay too much attention to what they’re doing.  At one point though,  I can’t help but notice when they shift Papa’s body and one of his leg falls off the side of the bed.  They quickly lift his leg back on the bed, but I’m struck with what I’ve just seen.  Papa’s leg falling off the bed… in such a way that it’s obvious there’s not a single ounce of life left in it, just a body part flopping like a limb of a rag doll.  This is just his body left here now, no life, no soul, nothing more.

When they finish, there is no more to be done.  We could wait for Papa’s body to be picked up, but neither of us feel that that is necessary.  So we say our goodbyes to Papa one last time, not really Papa, just his body, and we walk out the door of his room.  As we make our way down the hallway, Nana looks back and comments that if no one knew any better and saw Papa just now, they’d only think he was sleeping.

It feels strange leaving, strange leaving Papa lying in that room as we walk out, but I know it would feel even more awkward to stay.  I offer for Nana to come home with me, but she decides that isn’t necessary, she’ll sleep at her place and come see us the next day (or later today, I should say, as by now it’s in the wee hours of the morning).

I drive home, numb.  When I arrive home, there’s flowers on the kitchen counter along with a sweet note from a friend.  I’m touched by her kindness… for getting these here however and whenever she did.  I walk up the stairs and wake J up off the floor in the boys’ room, and we crawl into bed together.  He asks how it all happened and I tearfully relay the details.  And I think of Nana who is in her own bed now with no one to relay any details to.  No Papa by her side.

It’s closing in on 3 AM and at some point I fall asleep.