Guilt was written plainly on her face.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Without you, I don’t know what he would have done.”
She nodded with relief before glancing away. “I’m glad you’re home,” she began hesitantly, “because I wanted to talk to you about his situation.” She brushed at invisible lint on her clothing. “I know this great place that he could go where he could be taken care of. The staff is excellent. It’s almost always at capacity, but I know the director, and he knows your dad’s doctor. I know how hard this is to hear, but I think it’s what’s best for him, and I wish…”
When she stopped, letting the rest of her statement hang, I felt her genuine concern for my dad, and I opened my mouth to respond. But I said nothing. This wasn’t as easy a decision as it sounded. His home was the only place my father knew, the only place he felt comfortable. It was the only place his routines made sense. If staying in the hospital terrified him, being forced to live someplace new would likely kill him. The question came down to not only where he should die, but how he should die. Alone at home, where he slept in soiled sheets and possibly starved to death? Or with people who would feed and clean him, in a place that terrified him?
With a quiver in my voice I couldn’t quite control, I asked, “Where is it?”
I spent the next two weeks taking care of my dad. I fed him the best I could, read him the Greysheet when he was awake, and slept on the floor beside his bed. He soiled himself every evening, forcing me to purchase adult diapers for him, much to his embarrassment. He slept most of the afternoon.
While he rested on the couch, I visited a number of extended care facilities: not just the one that the neighbor had recommended, but those within a two-hour radius. In the end, the neighbor was right. The place she mentioned was clean, and the staff came across as professional, but most important, the director seemed to have taken a personal interest in my dad’s care. Whether that was because of the neighbor or my dad’s doctor, I never found out.
Price wasn’t an issue. The facility was notoriously expensive, but because my dad had a government pension, Social Security, Medicare, and private insurance to boot (I could imagine him signing on the insurance salesman’s dotted line years before without really understanding what he was paying for), I was assured that the only cost would be emotional. The director—fortyish and brown haired, whose kindly manner somehow reminded me of Tim—understood and didn’t press for an immediate decision. Instead, he handed me a stack of information and assorted forms and wished my dad the best.
That evening, I raised the subject of moving to my dad. I was leaving in a few days and didn’t have a choice, no matter how much I wanted to avoid it.
He said nothing while I spoke. I explained my reasons, my worries, my hope that he would understand. He asked no questions, but his eyes remained wide with shock, as if he’d just heard his own death sentence.
When I finished, I desperately needed a moment alone. I patted him on the leg and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I returned to the living room, my dad was hunched over on the couch, downcast and trembling. It was the first time I ever saw him cry.
In the morning, I began to pack my dad’s things. I went through his drawers and his files, the cupboards and closets. In his sock drawer, I found socks; in his shirt drawer, only shirts. In his file cabinet, everything was tabbed and ordered. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but in its own way it was. My dad, unlike most of humanity, had no secrets at all. He had no hidden vices, no diaries, no embarrassing interests, no box of private things he kept all to himself. I found nothing that further enlightened me about his inner life, nothing that might help me understand him after he was gone. My dad, I knew then, was just as he’d always seemed to be, and I suddenly realized how much I admired him for that.
When I finished gathering his things, my dad lay awake on the couch. After a few days of eating regularly, he’d regained a bit of strength. There was the faintest gleam in his eyes, and I noticed a shovel leaning against the end table. He held out a scrap of paper. On it was what appeared to be a hastily scrawled map, labeled “BACKYARD” in a shaky hand.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s yours,” he said. He pointed to the shovel.
I picked up the shovel, followed the directions on the map to the oak tree in the backyard, marched off paces, and began to dig. Within minutes the shovel sounded on metal, and I retrieved a box. And another one, beneath it. And another to the side. Sixteen heavy boxes in all. I sat on the porch and wiped the sweat from my face before opening the first.
I already knew what I’d find, and I squinted at the reflection of gold coins shimmering in the harsh sunlight of a southern summer. At the bottom of that box, I found the 1926-D buffalo nickel, the one we’d searched for and found together, knowing it was the only coin that really meant anything to me.
The next day, my last day on leave, I made arrangements for the house: turning off the utilities, forwarding the mail, finding someone to keep the lawn mowed. I stored the unearthed coins in a safe-deposit box at the bank. Handling those details took most of the day. Later, we shared a
final bowl of chicken noodle soup and soft-cooked vegetables for dinner before I brought him to the extended care facility. I unpacked his things, decorated the room with items I thought he’d want, and placed a dozen years’ worth of the Greysheet on the floor beneath his desk. But it wasn’t enough, and after explaining the situation to the director, I went back to the house again to collect even more knickknacks, all the while wishing I knew my dad well enough to tell what really mattered to him.
No matter how much I reassured him, he remained paralyzed with fear, his eyes tearing me apart. More than once, I was stricken with the notion that I was killing him. I sat beside him on his bed, conscious of the few hours remaining before I had to leave for the airport.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “They’re going to take care of you.”
His hands continued to tremble. “Okay,” he said in a barely audible voice.
I felt the tears beginning to form. “I want to say something to you, okay?” I drew breath, focusing my thoughts. “I just want you to know that I think you’re the greatest dad ever. You had to be great to put up with someone like me.”
My dad didn’t respond. In the silence, I felt all those things I’d ever wanted to say to him forcing their way to the surface, words that had been a lifetime in the making.
“I mean it, Dad. I’m sorry about all the crappy things I put you through, and I’m sorry that I was never here for you enough. You’re the best person I’ve ever known. You’re the only one who never got angry with me, you never judged me, and somehow you taught me more about life than any son could possibly ask. I’m sorry that I can’t be here for you now, and I hate myself for doing this to you. But I’m scared, Dad. I don’t know what else to do.”
My voice sounded hoarse and uneven to my own ears, and I wanted nothing more than for him to put his arm around me.
“Okay,” he finally said.
I smiled at his response. I couldn’t help it.
“I love you, Dad.”
To this he knew exactly what to say, for it had always been part of his routine.
“I love you, too, John.”
I hugged him, then rose and brought him the latest issue of the Greysheet. When I reached the door, I stopped once more and faced him.
For the first time since he’d been there, the fear was almost gone. He held the paper close to his face, and I could see the page shaking slightly. His lips were moving as he concentrated on the words, and I forced myself to study him, hoping to memorize his face forever.
It was the last time I ever saw him alive.
Seventeen
My dad died seven weeks later, and I was granted an emergency leave to attend the funeral.
The flight back to the States was a blur. All I could do was stare out the window at the formless gray of the ocean thousands of feet below me, wishing I could have been with him in his final moments. I hadn’t shaved or
