Good Grief

It happened on a Saturday night.  I pulled up to the hospital parking lot at 1:00 am.  My brother greeted me with a hug and led me down the dark hallway to the Intensive Care Unit.  My mother and sister sat in cushioned chairs outside the room where my father had just died.  

At their feet laid hospital bags full of his belongings, his Bruins and Red Sox blankets, sweaters, glasses, watch, cards, pictures, religious items, and, his wedding ring.  They were brought down by the nurses from the long term acute care unit a few floors above – his home for almost 12 months. 

As a family, we walked in together.  His room was dim and buzzed with silence.  On this night, I experienced my first humungous loss – the death of my father.  Although this was something I had always feared, I am grateful that he lived a long, full, and rich life. 

However, his time with us was too short.  He got married at the age of 44, my older sister, his eldest child, was born when he was 45, and my brother, the youngest, was born when he was 57.  We, his family, got to know him during the final chapter of his story.  But, we consider ourselves the best part of his life.

 

Intellectually we knew he was older.  We never saw him as elderly nor did he.  He resisted talk of retirement or assisted living centers.  He quipped those places are for “old people”.  At 80, he was busy going in and out of Boston working as a structural engineer.  He slowed down in the years that followed.  

My father was no stranger to the ER or ICU.  It was common for us to hear about his quality of life or lack thereof.  Medical personnel saw him as an old man ready for the grave.  We saw him as a young man fighting to stay alive in a frail dying body. 

The night of his death, his doctor was pleading on the phone to my sister to allow the doctors to perform emergency surgery to keep him alive.  Only one year before, he was so unresponsive, that this same doctor was ready to start the morphine drip to begin the journey from here to there.  It became evident to her and all of the hospital staff who fell in love with him, that my father, who, after a massive heart attack, quadruple bypass surgery, grand mall seizures, multiple surgeries, feeding tubes, and a tracheostomy, was able to find quality with his life, no matter what state of “health” he was in.  

It was painful to watch him fade into a hospital bed.   We’d heard the phrase “going septic”.  We’d been told numerous times to say goodbye.  The rapid response team surrounded his bed multiple times.  As sick as he was, I was still not convinced he would ever leave us.  After a three year roller coaster, it took less than 24 hours for him to die. 

Motherhood and a move three hours away coincided with the beginning of his illness.  I wrestled with a torn heart.  He died during my frantic drive from New Hampshire to Massachusetts.  How badly I wanted to be there at his bedside to whisper that God will take care of him and how much I love him and will miss him.  During the precarious moments of the night, my goodbye consisted of yelling into a cell phone held up to his ear by my brother.  My car window rolled down that winter night because our exhaust was shot. 

  

A typical response to his death was to remember to be grateful that he lived a long life.  In a state of grief, this reminder didn’t resonate well.  His long life does not erase the hole in my heart.  The sight and smell of flowers reminds me of the words of a relative at my father’s wake who, looking at his coffin expressed how “normal” it was to see a man his age filling it.  I breathed deeply to avoid crying in front of a woman who clearly believes she wins the grief award.  I inhaled the sweetness of the lilies as a way of biting my tongue. 

Good grief!  Good, because he is free from his sick body.  Grief, because we have lost an exceptional man.  On January 19, 2013, a few months shy of his 88^th birthday, my dear father succumbed to his failing health.  Upon entering his hospital room, I searched for any sign of life in him.  The back of his head was still warm and I laid my head against his whispering: 

Blessed Mother, please wrap your loving arms around Roger Patrick Reidy.  Jesus, be his friend on this journey.  And Dear Lord, please protect him as you would protect your own son.  I love you, Dad, and I miss you.