I spoke to the doctor, and the news wasn’t what I had hoped. My dad’s heart, I was told, had sustained major damage, and—in the doctor’s opinion—it was pretty much a miracle that he was moving as well as he was. Lack of exercise would be even worse for him.
It might have been that conversation with the doctor, or maybe it was just that I wanted an improved relationship with my dad, but we got along better on those two visits than we ever had. Instead of pressing him for constant conversation, I’d simply sit with him in his den, reading a book or doing crossword puzzles while he looked at coins. There was something peaceful and honest about my lack of expectation, and I think my dad was slowly coming to grips with the newfound change between us. Occasionally I caught him peeking at me in a way that seemed almost foreign. We would spend hours together, most of the time saying nothing at all, and it was in this quiet, unassuming way that we finally became friends. I often found myself wishing that my dad hadn’t thrown away the photograph of us, and when it was time for me to return to Germany, I knew that I would miss him in a way I never had before.
Autumn of 2004 passed slowly, as did the winter and spring of 2005. Life dragged on uneventfully. Occasionally, rumors of my eventual return to Iraq would interrupt the monotony of my days, but since I’d been there before, the thought of my return affected me little. If I stayed in Germany, that was fine. If I went back to Iraq, that was fine as well. I kept up with what was going on in the Middle East like everyone else, but as soon as I put down the newspaper or turned off the television, my mind wandered to other things.
I was twenty-eight by then, and I couldn’t escape the feeling that even though I’d experienced more than most people my age, my life was still on hold. I’d joined the army to grow up, and although a case could be made that I had, I sometimes wondered whether it was true. I owned neither a house nor a car, and aside from my dad, I was completely alone in the world. While my peers stuffed their wallets with photographs of their children and their wives, my wallet held a single fading snapshot of a woman I’d loved and lost. I heard soldiers talking of their hopes for the future, while I was making no plans at all. Sometimes I wondered what my men thought of my life, for there were times I caught them staring at me curiously. I never told them about my past or shared personal information. They knew nothing of Savannah or my dad or my friendship with Tony. Those memories were mine and mine alone, for I’d learned that some things are best kept secret.
In March 2005, my dad had a second heart attack, which led to pneumonia and another stint in the ICU. Once he was released, the medication he was on prohibited driving, but the hospital social worker helped me find someone to pick up the groceries he needed. In April, he went back to the hospital, where he learned he’d have to give up his daily walks as well. By May, he was taking a dozen different pills a day, and I knew he was spending most of his time in bed. The letters he wrote became almost illegible, not only because he was weak, but because his hands had begun to tremble. After a bit of prodding and begging on the phone, I persuaded a neighbor of my dad’s—a nurse who worked at the local hospital—to look in on him regularly, and I breathed a sigh of relief while counting down the days until my leave in June.
But my dad’s condition continued to worsen over the next few weeks, and on the phone I could hear a weariness that seemed to deepen every time I spoke with him. For the second time in my life, I asked for a transfer back home. My commanding officer was more sympathetic than he had been before. We researched it—even got as far as filing the papers to get me posted at Fort Bragg for airborne training—but when I spoke to the doctor again, I was told that my proximity wouldn’t do much to help my dad and that I should consider placing him in an extended care facility. My dad needed more care than could be provided at home, he assured me. He’d been trying to convince my father of that for some time—he was eating only soup by then—but my father refused to consider it until I returned for my leave. For whatever reason, the doctor explained, my dad was determined to have me visit him at home one last time.
The realization was crushing, and in the cab from the airport, I tried to convince myself that the doctor was exaggerating. But he wasn’t. My father was unable to rise from the couch when I pushed open the door, and I was struck by the thought that in the single year since I’d seen him last, he seemed to have aged thirty years. His skin was almost gray, and I was shocked by how much weight he’d lost. With a hard knot in my throat, I put down my bag just inside the door.
“Hey, Dad,” I said.
At first, I wondered whether he even recognized me, but eventually I heard a ragged whisper. “Hey, John.”
I went to the couch and sat beside him. “You okay?”
“Okay,” was all he said, and for a long time we sat together without saying anything.
Eventually I rose to inspect the kitchen but found myself blinking when I got there. Empty soup cans were stacked everywhere. There were stains on the stove, the garbage was overflowing, and moldy dishes were piled in the sink. Stacks of unopened mail flooded the small kitchen table. It was obvious that the house hadn’t been cleaned in days. My first impulse was to storm over to confront the neighbor who’d agreed to look in on him. But that would have to wait.
Instead, I located a can of chicken noodle soup and heated it up on the filthy stove. After filling a bowl, I brought it to my father on a tray. He smiled weakly, and I could see his gratitude. He finished the bowl, scraped at the sides for every morsel, and I filled another bowl, growing even angrier and wondering how long it had been since he’d eaten. When he polished off that bowl, I helped him lie back on the couch, where he fell asleep within minutes.
The neighbor wasn’t home, so I spent most of the afternoon and evening cleaning the house, starting with the kitchen and the bathroom. When I went to change the sheets on his bed and found them soiled, I closed my eyes and stifled the urge to wring the neighbor’s neck.
After the house was reasonably clean, I sat in the living room, watching my dad sleep. He looked so small beneath the blanket, and when I reached out to stroke his hair, a few strands came out. I began to cry then, knowing with certainty that my dad was dying. It was the first time I’d cried in years, and the only time in my life I’d ever cried for my dad, but for a long time the tears wouldn’t stop.
I knew that my dad was a good man, a kind man, and though he’d led a wounded life, he’d done the best he could in raising me. Never once had he raised his hand in anger, and I began to torment myself with the memories of all those years I’d wasted blaming him. I remembered my last two visits home, and I ached at the thought that we would never share those simple times again.
Later, I carried my dad to bed. He was light in my arms, too light. I pulled the covers up around him and made my bed on the floor beside him, listening to him wheeze and rasp. He woke up coughing in the middle of the night and seemed unable to stop; I was getting ready to bring him to the hospital when the coughing finally subsided.
He was terrified when he realized where I wanted to take him. “Stay… here,” he pleaded, his voice weak. “Don’t want to go.”
I was torn, but in the end I didn’t bring him. To a man of routine, I realized, the hospital was not only foreign, but a dangerous place, one that took more energy to adjust to than he knew he could summon. It was then that I realized he’d soiled himself and the sheets again.
When the neighbor came by the following day, the first words out of her mouth were an apology. She explained that she hadn’t cleaned the kitchen for several days because one of her daughters had been taken ill, but she’d been changing the sheets daily and making sure he had plenty of canned food. As she stood before me on the porch, I could see the exhaustion in her face, and all the words of reproach I’d been rehearsing drained away. I told her that I appreciated what she’d already done more than she would ever know.
“I was glad to help,” she said. “He’s been so nice over the years. He never complained about the noise my kids made when they were teenagers, and he always bought whatever they were selling when they needed to raise money for school trips or things like that. He keeps the yard just right, and whenever I asked him to watch my house, he was always there for me. He’s been the perfect neighbor.”
I smiled. Encouraged, she went on.
“But you should know that he doesn’t always let me inside anymore. He told me that he didn’t like where I put things. Or how I clean. Or the way I moved a stack of papers on his desk. Usually I ignore it, but sometimes, when he’s feeling okay, he’s quite adamant about keeping me out and he threatened to call the police when I tried to get past him. I just don’t…”
She trailed off, and I finished for her.
“You just don’t know what to do.”
