Let me preface with this, this is mainly for myself. If you want to read it, fine, it’s up to you. However I am doing this for myself, it is to help me cope with what happened and it helps me to work through it. This is a true story, I will not be using any real names. Be warned graphic detail ahead.
There he was, curled up in a chair trying to get some sleep. The sound of beeping and heart monitors constant through the night, his mother sleeping on the larger couch in the hospital room. Lights off. The dull hum of the machinery keeping his father alive in the background as he tries to sleep. A loud constant beep that he’s heard before goes off, means the medicine keeping his father’s blood shunted to the upper body to keep him alive. This is the last time he will see him alive. He opens his eyes and looks around the room, he doesn’t get up, he just….looks. He looks at his mother, she’s sleeping better than he is. He thinks to himself “She’s been dealing with this for a long time, she needs rest”. He stays curled up on the chair looking around, the beeping still droning on. A nurse comes and looks at his father, with a tube coming out of his mouth for breathing. She changes some bandages, checks the injection site on his father’s jugular, cleans his father’s face. She then addresses the beeping, she checks the monitor, then she adjusts the rate the medicine is applied. The beeping stops. The nurse looks at him, “Would you like something to drink?” He silently shakes his head and adjusts himself and his makeshift pillow he made out of his father’s favorite jacket.
The night passes. He’s groggy but he wakes up, his mother is already awake looking at her phone, texting some relatives. His mother looks at him and smiles a little, “How’d you sleep?” He sat up and stretched. “About as good as I can” he responded to her. A few hours pass, more relatives show up to see his father, the god-children come in to see his father, the god-grandchild is walked out of the room so she can cry. The doctor and the nurse come in introduce themselves. He nodded and looked at his mother then looked at the doctor. The doctor sits down, his mother grabs his father’s hand and he’s standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders. “About your father’s condition, it’s not getting any better. I believe your mother told you what’s happened?” He nodded “Yes…..I know about the scepsis and the fact he’s brain dead”. He still is holding onto hope, the night prior was his last chance to try to let his father come back. “I think it’s time, would you like some time to think about it?” He squeezed his mother’s shoulders a little bit, trying to stay strong and not break down. He nodded and he let his mother’s shoulders go and he stood straight and looked at his father. The nurse looked at him and recognized the false hope in his eyes. “Let me show you…” she opened his father’s eyes with her hand and she shined a flashlight in his father’s eye. No constriction, no dilation. Brain dead. He looked at his mother. “I think we should, your father wouldn’t want to live like this” she said to him. He looked at his god-sister, she nodded. He threw away his hope he had, he gave up on his father, he had to. “Let’s do it” he said with a heavy heart. They cut the life support, the cut off the heart monitor, they pulled out the breathing tube and cut the medicine drip. “Hail mary...full of grace...the lord is with the” choke “bles….blessed art thou among women...and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus” choke “Holy mary mothe…..mother of God, pray for us sinners….now at the hour of our death. Amen” he repeated, over and over again. Everyone else, silent. The god-granddaughter tried to join in to the best of her ability, she was not catholic, she did not know the words. He stopped and looked around. “Everyone” he said “It takes a couple of minutes for the brain to go, and hearing is one of the last things to go. Say what you will now before it’s too late”. Everyone says their goodbyes, he was the last to speak “I love you Dad”. They were ushered out of the room, god-granddaughter in tow, the nurses clean up the body. They all walk back to the room after 30 minutes. They see his father, laying flat on the bed now. They wait until the funeral home staff come to get his father. When the funeral staff get there, they start to prepare the body to move. His uncle Tyrone helps to get the body onto the stretcher*. Although he’s been through a lot in the past week, he finds the strength to walk his father out along with his uncle and the funeral staff. They put his father’s body into the van and close the door. His uncle puts his hand on the back of his neck, his family’s endearing gesture of all males, “I didn’t expect you to walk out with us.” He gulped to clear the knot in his throat, “This man saw me into this world and raised me, I have too much respect to not see him out of this world”
I’m ending this here. I cannot continue for now, too painful. There’ll be more coming in the next few days.
