"How are you doing?"
"Fine."
It's a lie, of course.
None of us are fine, now. The world is over, there's no point anymore. Why bother?
For some reason, though, people keep getting up in the morning, they continue going to work, they cook, eat, wash dishes. Just as if nothing had happened.
Even I manage to do that, though I spend a lot of time desparately trying not to burst into tears. I also spend a lot of time wanting to yell -- to cry out -- and smash someone repeatedly in the face.
But there's no one to hit. No one to blame. Not much to do but try to go on, to pretend, for the sake of someone, that there's is something worth getting up for.
Maybe there are people who don't know what's happened. People who didn't notice. People who haven't figured out it's game over. Maybe you're one of those people.
It was 4:14am when the phone rang.
It was the Jewish Home, calling to say that Dad had been having trouble breathing, and had been taken to the hospital. So Rachel and I pulled on some clothes and raced to the emergency room.
There, we saw Dad with his eyes rolled back into his head looking like he was repeatedly being kicked in the chest by a horse. It was not a pleasant sight.
The doctors said they were going to put a ventilator tube in him, so Rachel went out into the waiting room to call the putzes. I stayed for a minute, then went outside to compose myself and check on Rachel. She got a hold of Rita and told her to call the others. She then began making calls to arrange for a substitute teacher.
We then went upstairs with Dad to the ICU. There wasn't a lot we could do, except stay with him. With the ventilator, he was breathing easier, and was able to sleep.
Eventually, the putzes showed up.
Dad had had a heart attack. A big one. He was fine when the nurses checked on him, but soon after his roommate called the nurses in. His roommate saved his life.
They got him to the hospital, then called us.
It wasn't easy to see him there, unconscious, strapped to the table, his arms tied down. When patients are intubated -- when they need a to have a tube fed into their lungs via the throat -- they have to be strapped down so they can't pull the uncomfortable, but necessary, tube out of their mouths.
Dad tried, just like most patients. Where he differed was that he succeeded. Luckily, it turned out he didn't need it anymore at that point. He's a fighter.
"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night."Dylan Thomas
Dad got better. He even moved out of the ICU for a while. But it didn't last. He made it out of the ICU by sheer force of willpower, but his body couldn't keep up with his stubborn refusal to die.
His kidneys began failing, then his heart couldn't keep up. It became only a matter of time.
I tried to be there every day. I gave up trying to work. I couldn't swim, because what could I think about for an hour a day that didn't involve my Dad? The diet was forgotten -- I gained 15 pounds there in the hospital.
Towards the end, he would be in and out of consciousness. I picked up a copy of Bill Cosby's Fatherhood and would read it to him. I told him jokes. We found a book that consisted solely of the bizarre but extremely funny titles of other books and I read that to him. We bought him a stuffed hippo.
Barbara brought a tape of some friend of his singing a song and played it for him. Rachel jumped around and acted silly. We brought him his Playboys. Someone had brought him a yellow squeeze ball with a 60's happy face on it, and we were asking him questions. He would raise the ball in the air to mean yes, and leave it in his lap to mean no. We asked (who knows why) if he liked pretty girls, and he lifted his arm way up in the air and shook it vehemently. He was smiling.
Daniel came by and told him how he remembered the first time they met -- Dad was climbing a ladder, his cane hooked over his arm, to get a look into the rooftop tent on top of a Land Rover. Daniel pulled out a gift for him -- a small Matchbox Land Rover, with a roofrack and stuff that could be a rooftop tent. When Dad was going to sleep, we started taking things off the bed and putting them on the table, or his shelf. We offered to put the Land Rover on the table too, but he grabbed it tight and held on to it; he wouldn't let go.
Daniel told me that something I could do for Dad would be to let him know that he had been a good father and that I could take it from here -- giving him permission to take care of himself. I tried to tell him that he was the best father, and the best friend I or anyone else had ever had, but I don't know if he was able to hear it.
I wish I had told him that sooner.
On May 16, in the morning, I was sitting with him when the machines started beeping stridently. His heartbeat was barely there -- a quivering line, rather than a repeating jump. I ran to get the nurses, then ran back and grabbed his hand. I think I kept telling him "I love you" and "Thank you", but I'm not sure. One of the nurses came in and took his other hand, stroking it gently.
It took all my willpower not to jump up and start screaming for them to do something -- anything -- to save him. Get the paddles! Get some drugs! Save him!
But that wouldn't have been fair to him. We had met with the doctors previously and had been told that he wouldn't make it without serious intervention -- respirators and dialysis and other unpleasant things. They could prolong his life, but it wouldn't be worth living. As much as he wanted to live, I didn't think he would want that. I didn't know, so I had to make the best choice I could -- for him.
And so the world came to an end. A couple of gasps, and it was over. Done. Nothing left, but the clean up.
Writing the obituary was hard. How do you fit a man greater Lincoln, Jefferson, Da Vinci, Mozart, and more combined into a few short paragraphs?
Three days later was his Bar Mitzvah. Rachel and I stood in his place, and I read his speech for him. It was a wonderful speech; he had worked very hard on it.
Then we had to send out new invitations. We had been planning a huge party to celebrate his 75th birthday; he died a week and a half before his birthday. The party became a memorial -- a gathering of friends to remember a great man.
And now, BART trains keep moving. Pharmacies sell medicines. School teachers teach kids to read. A woman shows her friends the new shirt she bought. I don't get it.
I miss him.