They're a little taken aback by my simple statement but then the feeling in the room changes. (It usually does when I explain to a patient or family member that I have lived a parallel experience.) They relax a bit and we start to converse. Then they ask the question that I hate to answer. No transplant patient likes to think of the possibility that after all they have been through they can still experience medical complications and death. A transplant is a stay of execution for some; there are any number of complications and the risk is like playing roulette. They ask how my dad is doing after all this time. I respond, with a gentle smile, that he has passed away. Most of the time my patients are very kind and tell me they are sorry for my loss.
This particular patient rather than offering me condolences said the one thing no one else has ever said or seemed to realize.
"It's hard to lose your best friend."
I smile and nod my head in acknowledgement.
They call them stages of grief. As if once you've experienced all the levels you've accomplished something and the grief magically disappears. It doesn't. I don't think it ever will. It should be called the cycle of grief.
When my dad died it never occurred to me all the little things that he and I had in common that I would miss. We read the same books. He was my biggest academic supporter/cheerleader. We enjoyed the same subjects. We loved discussing the scriptures and listening to sermons on tape and then discussing. He was the first person I told about anything new I learned--even when it was something silly like The Apple Bottom Jeans Incident. (You wouldn't believe how many stories I have that are almost identical to that one and they almost always occur in public. It's mildly embarrassing how incredibly naïve I am about basic things in American culture.)
Every Sunday night, Dad and I would watch C-SPAN at the same time. Brian Lamb hosted a show that ran for 10 years called Book Notes. He and the author would sit down one-on-one and discuss their book. It was fascinating. The majority of the books were historical non-fiction and many of the authors were college professors. If we were in the same house, Dad and I would watch and discuss the book. Later that week we would usually make a trip to Barnes & Noble to buy a copy so we could read it. When I was back at my apartment in Provo, we could still watch the show at the same time and then our weekly phone call usually consisted of us discussing the show and making plans to read the book. I would get a copy from the university library and he would get someone to purchase a copy for him.
One Sunday night, we were talking on the phone and I was telling him about a show I had seen on The History Channel about the history of modern plumbing. I was telling him about the Roman toilets and he exclaimed that he had just watched the same show. We spend a good bit of time discussing s-traps and pipes that night.
As his illness progressed, he spent more and more time being unaware of what was going on around him and lost his ability to concentrate and comprehend what he was reading or watching on the television. He eventually was unable to read a book and would turn on a movie or documentary merely to keep him company in his room as he cycled in and out of sleep. There were good days where we thought he was getting better and would be himself but those became fewer and fewer.
Eventually you stop hoping they will wake up one morning and be themselves and start praying that God will end their suffering. Being healed comes in different forms. I remember responding to my dad's last inquiry about whether I thought he would be made whole. I took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and said, "I think you're going to die." He was very angry with me and didn't speak to me for a long time after that. We had a very big fight, I bought a plane ticket, and went back home to my apartment in Provo. He eventually apologized to me the next time he was released from the hospital. He sobbed on the phone as he explained that he had no desire to acknowledge that he would die and leave us. My honesty had been too hurtful.
Yes, it is extremely hard to lose your best friend. To lose the person who loves you no matter what. The person who understands you and is excited to talk to you about mutual interests and doesn't judge you for anything. The person who reads something about a particular profession and wants you to then have that job. It's doubly difficult when that best friend is one of your parents. You see, the thing they don't tell you, when you lose one parent you lose both of them. And sometimes you lose yourself.
I miss my dad. And some nights, when I can't sleep, I turn on a Ken Burns documentary, particularly The Civil War or Baseball. Dad watched them over and over and sometimes when I watch them, I can pretend for a brief moment out of time that he's watching them with me, ready to discuss some new aspect of the historical record we hadn't previously noticed.
Happy Father's Day!
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| At a wedding reception Fresno, California 3 July 1993 |
Have you ever read "A Grief Observed"? There are some things you said here that reminded me of some things he said.
ReplyDeleteI have not read it but maybe I should.
DeleteI have read it but forgot I had read it. Maybe I should read it again.
Delete