Dad (non-fiction/memoir)

            The only sounds in the room are the soft strains of classical music coming from the CD player on the bedside table, and the rasping breaths coming from the bed.

            I watch the figure in the bed and think back to two months ago, to the day this journey began.

            Actually, it was two months and three days, to be exact—December 16, 2011, a Friday night. I was at home, unwinding after a long week. My father’s lady friend Helen called. Her voice was urgent.

            “I think there’s something wrong with your father,” she said. “He’s talking funny and isn’t making any sense.”

            So it was the phone call that everyone of a certain age dreads. “Can I talk to him?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

            There was a short pause, and then my father’s voice came on. “Yello.” He sounded okay—so far.

            “How’s it going?” I asked. I just needed to hear him speak, to try to judge how he sounded.

            “Good,” he said, predictably.

            “How are you feeling?”         

            “I’m…okay,” he said, and I caught something in his voice.

            “Helen says you’re not doing too well. Do you think you need to see a doctor?” I asked.

            “Nope,” he said, also predictably. And then he launched into a semi-coherent explanation for his symptoms, and now I could hear it—slurring, hesitation, and confusion, as when he said the next day was Wednesday. Oh yeah, something was wrong.

            Helen got back on the phone. “Can you take him to the doctor?” I asked.

            “He won’t go,” she said. Ah yes, his legendary Hungarian stubbornness. I’d had my differences with Helen over the years, but she always took good care of my father. I extracted a promise from her that she would try to get him to a doctor, and hung up, my mind racing.

            The rasping breath catches a moment, then resumes. I move closer to the bed. I’ve heard that hearing is the last sense to go, so I speak to him in a soft voice. “I’m here. Alex is here.” I keep talking, hoping that my voice can reach through the fog.

            Helen did get my father to the doctor, who promptly admitted him to Parma Hospital. When I saw him there, I immediately thought he’d had a stroke. The left side of his mouth was drooping, and his speech was slow and deliberate. In addition, every time I asked him a question, he would respond in his native Hungarian, then shake his head and revert to English.

            Dad always said English was a tough language to learn. He came to the United States in 1954, and became an American citizen five years later. He assimilated quickly, and not only did he learn English, he usually spoke it better than the natives.

            He used his new language skills to teach himself how to build or repair just about anything. He became quite the handyman, eventually running his own home improvement business, while remodeling our house almost single-handedly. He also found time to play catch with me in the backyard and come to all of my baseball games.

            The doctor scheduled an MRI to try to come up with a definitive diagnosis. I wrote to my brother Tony, who lives in Oregon, telling him that Dad had had a stroke and that with some physical therapy, he could make a good recovery.

            Monday, December 19 was a typical Cleveland winter day—gray, snowy, cold. I arrived at work feeling strangely optimistic. And then, around 10:30, I walked into my office to find a voice mail waiting for me. This was the message, in its entirety: “Alex, this is Dr. Anderson. Your father has a brain tumor. We’re transferring him to the Cleveland Clinic.”

             “Your father.” “Brain tumor.” As a medical writer, I knew the term for my state of mind at that moment–“psychogenic shock,” or “shock due to emotional stress.”

            I put on a CD of Hungarian music, hoping that the music of his heritage will reach him through the tumor, the beast that has taken over his brain.

            I turn back to the bed and continue talking to him. Because I am the oldest, he used to call me his “number one son,” so I say gently, “I’m here. Your number one son is here.” I say it again and again, desperate to let him know that I am by his side, and will never leave him.

            After the MRI, there followed two months of hospitalizations, treatments, brief respite/hope, and then rapid decline. My father was tough, but unfortunately, he had come up against something that even he couldn’t fix.

            The brain tumor was diagnosed as a glioblastoma, which is extremely aggressive, and usually fatal. The treatment regimen called for 15 radiation sessions at the Cleveland Clinic, and then an MRI about a month later. Because I work at the Clinic, I was able to be with him for his treatments. My brother came to town the first week of January to help out.

            In keeping with his character, my father did not seem bitter or even scared at the news of his diagnosis. I think his life in pre- and post-WWII Europe must have toughened him. He never once complained, never once said anything that sounded like self-pity. At one point, when I reminded him that his MRI was coming up soon, he simply said, “I’m not expecting a miracle.”

            As I’m talking to my father, everything I’ve ever read about the dying process starts coming back to me. For instance, that sometimes the person is afraid to give up the spirit. For some people, their will is so strong that they fight it all the way. Sounds like Dad.

            I put my hand on his shoulder and, leaning in, our faces only inches apart, I say in a soft voice, “It’s okay to let go. You don’t have to fight anymore,” and I realize with a shudder that I am giving my father permission to die.

            Thanks to the radiation treatments, Dad’s speech improved quite a bit, and he was still able to get around on his own, albeit slowly. As it turned out, his last treatment was on January 19, his 85th birthday. A good omen? The radiation wore him out, though, and he usually fell asleep by 6:30 every night. I was especially grateful that he didn’t seem to be in any pain the whole time.

            I started allowing myself to believe that he might beat this thing. Why couldn’t he survive the deadliest type of brain tumor? Why the hell not? I gingerly returned to a “normal” life that I had always taken for granted—going to movies, out to dinner, and so on.

            This respite ended after three weeks, when my father couldn’t get out of bed and had to go back to the hospital. Later, the doctor showed me his CT scan, and I came face-to-face with the beast. There it was, surrounded by an ocean of fluid that was pushing the midline—the central dividing line of the brain—off to the side. The doctor didn’t need to explain what that meant.

            By Valentine’s Day, Dad’s condition had deteriorated to the point where we had to admit him to a hospice. We took him there on February 16, which happened to be my eighth anniversary at the Cleveland Clinic. I never dreamed that I would be spending that anniversary in the Clinic’s palliative care unit, weeping while the ambulance drivers transferred my father onto a stretcher for his final ride.

            By this point, he had lapsed into a coma. At the hospice, I asked a nurse if they were going to insert an IV for hydration. She gently explained that he would not be receiving water or any nutrition. The dying process had to play out. I hadn’t even thought of that, but of course it made sense. My brother, who had gone back to Oregon feeling hopeful about Dad’s chances, caught the next plane to Cleveland.

            On Saturday, February 18, a steady stream of visitors came to the hospice. Helen, my father’s brothers, my aunts, various cousins. Some spoke to him, others simply held his hand. Dad slept on, but I like to think he heard them, or at least somehow knew they were there, and he was hanging on to give them a chance to say goodbye.

            Sunday, February 19. Exactly two months since the diagnosis. It’s almost 11 p.m. I’ve been at the hospice most of the day, watching the life slowly drain out of my father. It feels right that at this moment, he and I are alone.

            His eyes are closed, his head back on the pillow, his breathing ragged. I still have my hand on his shoulder, and I’m still talking to him.

            Around 11:30, his breathing becomes shallower. I lean in again. “I’m here,” I say again. “It’s okay to let go. Your number one son is here.” It’s turned into a mantra.

            Suddenly, his eyes snap open and he looks directly at me for a long moment. Maybe he has heard me. Then he closes his eyes again, and with a long exhale, he dies.

             I put my hand on his chest, maybe to confirm that he is indeed gone. He was my hero, and the toughest guy I’ve ever known. His long journey is over, and I am by his side at the end. And no one can ever take that from me.