Five Days

It was both big and very small, the dying of my father. Enormous in its finality, but barely perceptible in the tiny steps that took us to that moment. The changes in his breathing – where the time until the next breath gradually lengthened until the next one just did not come at all; the message in his eyes that moved from fury to confusion to knowing and then to not; the gradual, smooth slowing of his heart beat, ticking on the monitor softer and then softer again, until it was gone like a perfect live fade.

There were the thin, razor-like creases in the scrubs of the handsome young nurse who greeted him with a determined, “Good morning, Meeester Meeeller!” No matter that it was 2 AM. And Dad would reach out, often without opening his eyes, to shake his hand. Dying or not, you shook a man’s hand when he greeted you. It was a simple enough act. And yet I had to keep my eyes on those creases, because the weakening grip would have undone me at last.

There was the saying of thirty years worth of things unsaid with a wink and a rearranging of his pillows. He’d wake just long enough for me to say “Hi, Sunshine,” and bend down to kiss his forehead. The last time he opened his eyes and rested them on mine, he only saw love. Pure in a way I’ve not known it before or since.

There was the constant presence of a hand on my back, on my shoulder, coffee appearing in my hands, and a desperately needed toothbrush appearing on the sink, arms around me curled up on the cot in his room, a whisper of a kiss on my own forehead when she thought I was asleep, giving me what I needed to get through the next day way before I knew how to ask.

There were two friends and four words, “We will be there.” And they were.  The day after he died, driving, non-plussed, across west Texas and onto the Clovis plains, past the lone landmark of a three story mound of cow crap outside Muleshoe - in time for me to try out the obituary on them and in time for a long, hard hug before climbing into the family car.

It took five days. A Friday to a Tuesday and everything changed. Everything. But in living every moment, it was more like a slow sunset – you know it’s happening, you expect it - the sky goes purple, but you still feel the sun after it crosses the horizon and you squint a little to catch the last of it...just to be sure.  Until there is that one moment, that one, when it is definitely and certainly gone, and there’s no getting it back.