For me, the experience of losing my father started when I was invited to speak at the Savannah College of Art and Design, a very prestigious art school in Georgia. As my visit to Georgia drew near and the demands on my time intensified, I considered canceling. Why had I agreed to give two talks in Georgia—one at the Savannah campus, and one at the Atlanta campus—for free?
Not long before I was due to depart, I got a phone call from my mom. My dad, who had been battling emphysema for eight years, had taken a turn for the worse; they weren’t sure he’d live through the day. All of a sudden it made sense. I’d psychically agreed to take this terribly inconvenient trip to Georgia, so I’d be a quick one-hour plane flight from Virginia when my father’s time came. On the Saturday night before my trip, I called him to tell him I felt like I may not see him again.
“You know what, honey?” he said. “I’m proud of you. Your show is great, your book is great.”
He sounded upbeat and lucid. Then seventy-four, he’d been bedridden since Ava’s birth in 2002, when he’d made it to New York to meet his newborn granddaughter. Soon after that he’d been given three months to live, and we’d dutifully attended his “last” Christmas for seven years, shipping Ava’s presents down to Virginia and then hauling them back up to New York. Through it all, my mother, Beverly, had been his devoted caretaker, even though it basically confined her to the house too. (FYI, you know how they say, “Smoking kills”? Well, they mean it.)
When I left my office to catch my plane, I told my staff, “You watch. I’m going to get to Georgia and my dad’s going to die.”
The morning of my talk in Savannah, I was told that 475 students were gathered to hear me speak, one of the best turnouts ever for a speaker. As I sat at a faculty lunch before the talk, my mother called again. Here we go, I thought. “Your father isn’t doing well,” she said. I told her there were nearly 500 kids waiting to hear me speak. “Do what you have to do, and call us afterwards,” she said.
I walked onto the stage. I have no memory of what I said. I just remember being conscious that my dreams were attacking me. That’s the weird thing about dreams—as soon as you start to manifest them, they turn on you, forcing you to rebuild and fortify your belief systems.* By now I had so many of the things I’d always wanted, both professionally and personally. But all these things I teach, about the soul, about the physical body being just a cage, were about to be really tested. Did I fucking believe in all of my shteeze?
I finished speaking and called my dad. “You need to go,” he said, urging me not to cancel my second talk in Atlanta. “Finish your work. I’ll see you soon.”
I did as he said and then caught the next flight for Virginia. When I arrived at my parents’ condo, I offered to take the night shift. For nine days, I sat up with my father, hoping he would die. I’ll be honest. I wanted my father to die when I was sitting with him, since my grandparents hadn’t. I even contemplated killing him myself. It would’ve been so easy to step on the oxygen tube that was keeping him alive. When you’re dying of emphysema, you can’t breathe on your own. And it seemed like the right and loving thing to do. His eyes were silver, he was no longer communicating, and I’m sure that nurses and loved ones do it all the time.
But I stopped myself, because, despite what I could see happening on the outside, I had no idea what was going on in his inner world. I didn’t know if he was still processing things or why he was still here. (I could also see myself, on my future talk show, accidentally confessing my crime or, worse yet, having a psychic as a guest. I could even see the headlines: “Talk Show Host Admits Killing Her Father!”) Instead, I just sat there and watched and listened as death stalked him and he said funny things like, “Sergeant Blanding. Sergeant Blanding, reporting for duty!” (He’d served in the Korean War.) When I started laughing, he said, “Miss, if you don’t mind me saying so, you have an infectious laugh and wonderful breasts.” I mean, I’ve always wanted to talk to guys about my boobs, but my dad has never been one of them.
Here’s another thing I learned from my father’s death—one I want you to learn too. You have to be very clear about whether you want medications at the end and what kind of treatments you’re willing to undergo to keep you (or your loved ones) alive. My father had a “Do Not Resuscitate,” which meant he didn’t want to be resuscitated by machines if his heart stopped beating. But he was still on oxygen, which was keeping him alive—artificially! I also noticed his nurses
