When we arrived at my Dad's place, the jovial neighbor, Jim, warmly welcomed my arrival, and wanted to talk, but my sisters cut us short. My presence was required in my Dad's bedroom.
My father, bedridden for two days, needed help moving around. I was happy to oblige. For all my sister's dire warnings, I thought my Dad somehow looked better than expected, with few wrinkles and an appreciable glow to his face. I complimented my father on how he looked, and my sister Michelle joined in: "Dad, I have more wrinkles than you do! How do you keep your skin looking so nice? What is your beauty secret?" Then, answering herself, she said "Oh! It's the Blakes' Lotaburgers!" We all laughed about that, including my father [note: Blakes is a NM drive-up hamburger restaurant chain, and over the years, my father was among their most devoted patrons.]
In the evening, meeting with my family, I caught up on my father's latest medical problems. He had fallen twice earlier in the week, and graduated instantly to a walker, but even that was a passing phase: he was now bedridden. In addition to COPD, and emphysema, and stomach cancer, he now also had congestive heart failure and pneumonia too. A pretty formidable list of enemies! My sister Marra thought he would pass away in a few hours (George the Hospice Nurse also thought that a quick death was likely). I thought he probably had two days left, but it was hard to tell.
My sister Michelle decided to sleep in the second bedroom, at the southern end of the mobile home. A baby monitor made it possible for her to hear my Dad, despite the distance. I decided to sleep on some sofa pillows next to my Dad's bed, in the first, northern bedroom. We sent sister Marra home to get some rest.
Rainy nights are rare in New Mexico, but the water fell in sheets Thursday night, and Friday morning. Both my sister and I made pretenses to sleep - early on, we may even have had some naps - but after about 1 a.m., we gave up. We turned on the bedroom light and shifted his position, hoping to make him more comfortable. He refused morphine (he made minimal use of the drug, taking it only four times, each dose being half of the recommended minimum dose, and only sufficient to cause an hour's long nap). Then we turned off the lights and in the dark made do with blue illumination from a first-alert device on a bedside table. My sister held his hand and I placed my hand on his shoulder. The pneumonia had settled in and breathing was more difficult than ever.
One of the things that dying people do is to take what are called long breaths - where breathing ceases altogether for a long time - before starting breathing again (almost like sleep apnea). According to George the Nurse, he had been taking these long breaths even on Thursday. He had rallied Thursday evening when I arrived, but now, in the wee hours of Friday morning, he had slipped back into the long breaths.
By 3 a.m., the long breaths alternated with the dread "death rattle" of galloping pneumonia. Death appeared increasingly likely. We both checked the time every few minutes. Heavy rain pelted the mobile home.
At about 4:30 a.m., with a mighty effort of his body, he pushed away my hand from his shoulder. Perhaps he was irritated by my hand's presence, or perhaps he had to focus on something else. At 4:36 a.m., he took a breath, then stopped. We waited for him to resume breathing, and only slowly realized he wasn't going to breathe again. In the nocturnal electric-blue illumination, I could see his head shift slightly from side to side, as if struggling. At 4:38 a.m. MDT, Friday, August 14, 2009, the struggling stopped.
We turned on the lights and quickly called my sister Marra with the news. We also turned off the oxygen-concentrating breathing apparatus that had kept him going for so many years. Then we called Harmony Hospice and roused George the Nurse. Since the mobile home park is a gated community, I went out to wait for George at the gate (the journey to which had been rendered more complicated by the recent actions of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District to close the access road to the gate in order to replace a bridge across the irrigation ditch). I returned to the trailer once just to make sure George was coming, and went out to wait for him again at the gate. George finally arrived and pronounced my father dead at 5:53 a.m. About 6:15 a.m., we called French Mortuary, with whom my father had made prior funeral arrangements. At 7:45 a.m., French's Transport Team rolled up and prepared to take my father's body away.
When the Transport Team took my father's arms and legs and moved him from the bed to the stretcher, my father exhaled through his vocal cords, sounding just like he was protesting the move from beyond the grave. I was spooked by the involuntary noise, but fortunately my sisters had been speaking to each other and didn't notice. Then the transport vehicle rolled away in the rain.
And finally, in the light of Friday's grey dawn, the rain stopped.
Left: Frozen in time - the mobile home's living room and kitchen, captured on the morning of D-Day.
Left: My father's last trip out of the mobile home park. French Mortuary's transport coach, carrying my father's body, does a T-turn in order to exit the park.We later asked why French chose a uniform white color for their fleet. They said it was a matter of practicality - white is a better, cooler color for the desert. An interesting piece of trivia they offered: in South Carolina, funeral home auto fleets are a dark green color.
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