I remember the day before. Telling him that he was dying. I prepared myself, but in the end, I couldn’t even say the words. Even now I can’t say the “D” word. I have built myself up enough to say he has passed away. I feel that is enough. I remember the words I chose at his bedside and how determined I was to be strong for him.
“You’re not walking out of here this time,” I said. “There’s nothing more they can do.” I remember the look on his face. The way he turned away and stared at the ceiling. He did that a lot here lately whenever he didn’t want to hear what was being said.
“Daddy?”
He looked at me.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.” He mouthed. He now had a trach in place so it was then that I realized I would never get to hear his voice again.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m thinking.” He mouthed back.
“About what?”
He looked me straight in the eyes and mouthed, “how much I’m going to miss you.”
I crumbled. The reality hit me so hard that I could barely stand. “I’m so sorry daddy. I tried to be strong for you. I can’t.” I cried.
“I’ll be okay. You helped me. You prayed with me.” He mouthed back.
“I wish you wouldn’t have done the chemo,” I said quietly.
At this my daddy closed his eyes and shrugged. “I had to try.”
Daddy’s doctor had told him he had a “curable” cancer. He only had another round of chemo left, but it was too late. This round did too much damage. The chemo put a hole in his intestine. My dad thought he must have strained a muscle in physical therapy so he didn’t take the abdominal pain seriously. He went septic. The nursing home where he was in rehabilitation didn’t catch it. They sent him home, where he got to stay for twenty-four hours, before he’d never get to go home again. We tried everything to save him. Every test, every surgery, every medicine. His body was shutting down. No matter what I did, I couldn’t save him. He always told the doctors and nurses that I kept him straight. He always felt better when I was there. He knew he was safe. That I’d watch over him and wouldn’t let anything happen to him. And I had to tell him it wasn’t true. I failed him. I couldn’t stop it. Me and my daddy had to face his mortality and my weakness in that moment.
I went home that night begging God to come back. Begging Him to end the world. If I could ask for anything, it was to not have to face tomorrow. I knew it would be my daddy’s last tomorrow. I wanted to stay with him at Riverside, but they wouldn’t allow it. They did concede to let me come in two hours before visiting hours started. So, that night I lay in my own bed, praying the sun would never come up. But come up it did.
The next morning Arilyn asked to come with me. We set out on our way, knowing what the day held. I remember seeing the traitorous sun behind the clouds and thinking this was the last day that it would shine on my daddy. Parking the car in the red garage for the last time threatened to break me. I cursed being at the hospital every day for the past month, but now I’d give anything to go back and sit with him again.
When I went into his room, he was still sleeping. It was the first time he actually looked comfortable. I didn’t want to wake him, so me and Arilyn sat down on the couch in his room and waited. The respiratory therapist came in and woke him. She told me they’d do a breathing test later that day. I had to explain to her that none of that mattered now. I guess they didn’t relay to her that daddy was to be admitted to hospice. He wanted to die at home and we tried to make that happen, but he couldn’t survive the forty-two, minute trip. I looked over at daddy. He was alert. Looking back at me.
“Good morning daddy.” I smiled at him like my heart wasn’t breaking.
“Good morning.” He mouthed back.
I got a warm wet washcloth and washed his face. He had some tube feed still in his beard from when he vomited the previous night. As I washed his beard clean, daddy stared at me in awe. I think a thought passed between us that this would be the only time I would care for him in this capacity. There would be no old age for him, and no further daughter duty for me. He smiled up at me.
“I love you daddy,” I relayed for the millionth time in a month.
“I love you too.” He mouthed. I was crying again. He fell back to sleep and I took my place in the chair beside his bed.
Daddy wakes up to find me staring at him again. He looks concerned. He’s started this thing in this hospital stay. He furrows his brows. It’s how he shows he’s in pain, confused, concerned, etc. I apologize for staring. “It’s okay,” he mouths. I explain to him that I’m trying to memorize his face. I’m trying to keep the exact shade of blue his eyes are, for when I miss him. I’m trying to internalize the safe feeling I get when my daddy smiles at me. His real smile, in person. Not what it looks like in pictures. The real one. The one a camera could never capture. “You can stare,” he laughs. Daddy looks in my direction every couple of minutes to see if I’m still watching him. Every time our eyes meet, I’m rewarded with that smile. I cry every time.
“Take me with you daddy. I can’t do this. I can’t be without you. I don’t want to live without you.”
“You’ll be okay,” he mouths.
“No, I really won’t. I’ll never be okay again. I want to die too,”
“No, don’t say that. Take care of your babies. They need you.”
I nod at this, but have no words beyond tears. I went around to the right side of his bed (because he could no longer move his right arm) and laid over him, allowing myself to sob uncontrollably in his arms for one last time. I felt his left arm wrap around me and I cried harder. He should've been the one being comforted, yet here he was, still comforting me. How was I supposed to live the rest of my life without him? Without his hugs?
There’s a lot of bad in between the quiet moments of me and my dad. The pain and repositioning he has to go through. Suctioning, mouth care, trach care, etc. One of the worst things I had to witness was him throwing up. The lowest rate of tube feed is too much for a body shutting down. This would cause daddy to vomit. The night before his passing I held his head upright while he puked. It caused him pain due to the trach. He had to vomit around it. Not to mention the abdominal surgery he just had.
On the last day of daddy’s life, we were unable to admit him to hospice because we were still desperately trying to find a loophole to keep him on the vent while he passed. He was so afraid of not being able to breathe, that it was most important to keep him comfortable. I presented daddy with all the information and choices, but never made his decisions. He always called the shots. He is the one who made the decision to turn off the vent. Once again, I cried. Since it was too late to go home, and we opted out of hospice; I told daddy I’d be honored to be his hospice nurse.
We had all of his children and grandchildren in to say goodbye. Watching my own children with their papa was hard. Watching Tahcowa remain stoic, Kaden break silently, while Arilyn held his hand, laid her head on his bed, and wept. I watched him mouth to my little sister, Kristal, to tell our mom bye. Once everyone had come and spent time with him, the nurse administered medicine to help with the pain and respiratory secretions. Daddy asked my brother, Kevin, to read Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5,6, and 7. Kevin opened the Bible and read aloud to the silent room. After Kevin read, my husband took over and read. When he finished, Tahcowa started to read. Daddy was falling asleep, but he woke up and looked at me.
“I love you so much daddy.”
“I love you too.”
“Tahcowa is reading the Bible!”
Daddy lifted his head to look at his grandson. He looked back at me and smiled. Then he laid his head back down on his pillow and closed his eyes. He never opened them again.
People slowly left the hospital, taking their tears with them. My brother left to take his youngest daughter home. He told me to call him when daddy passed away. In the quiet, those of us who were left, continued to read scripture. Eventually that stopped too. I noticed a Jimmy Stewart movie was on the television and turned it on low. My daddy’s favorite actor was Jimmy Stewart. My little sister and I had taken up post on either side of daddy’s bed. We talked quietly, watching him breathe, and holding his hands.
My brother came back to the hospital. He said he couldn’t sit and wait for a phone call. He had to come back. He took his seat beside me. Beside dad. Fifteen minutes later, daddy’s breathing changed. I called for the nurse. He listened to daddy’s heart. It stopped beating. He was gone.
All of the air was sucked out of the room with him. I could never accurately describe how it felt to be told he was gone. The man who held my hand to cross the street when I was small. Walked me down the aisle when I was big. Called me precious. Fixed my cars, my ac, plumbing, etc. Helped me house hunt. Watched movies with me, watched football games with me every weekend in the fall. Loved my kids. The man I bowled with, rode dirt bikes with, did cookouts with, walked old man’s caves every year with. The first person I showed my engagement ring to. My biggest supporter. My safety net. The first man I ever loved. He came for Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday parties. He was always my person. My one place I could always go. My biggest fan. My favorite storyteller. My daddy. And all of that was gone.
I know that me and my siblings handle it differently, but I also know that in that moment we all felt the same, irreversibly broken. We will never be the same again. The three kids that walked into the hospital that day, never walked out. Their shells did. One by one my siblings and grandma left the hospital. I stayed and walked back and forth in his room, gathering things. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t know how to walk away. Usually when me and my daddy are together it’s at my house, and he’s the one leaving me. I’m not used to leaving him. And not like this. Not for the last time. I couldn’t hug him bye like I normally do, so I kissed him on his temple like I had every night since Aug.19th. I told him what I always did when he left my house. “I love you daddy. Drive safe.”
I wrote a blog back in 2017 called “Quiet in the ICU.” It was about the time my daddy went to the intensive care unit on a ventilator, and that experience. He was on life support for three days. Obviously he pulled through, and we got seven more wonderful years with him. In the blog I recounted how when I first got to the ICU, I walked past a glass wall with swirls on it. The swirls were words. And in those words, ‘Trust Christ’ stuck out and stuck with me. I chose to trust Christ then, and my daddy walked out of the hospital.
Fast forward to 2024. They’ve since added on to the hospital. The ICU my daddy spent his last day on earth in, was a newer addition. So, when my husband was finally able to coax me out my daddy’s hospital room for the very last time, I almost missed the message. I remember being held up by Jacob. I remember putting one foot in front of the other, just moving forward because I knew if I stopped, I would crumble and never get back up. I barely caught it out of my peripheral vision, but there it was. Another glass wall with white swirls on it. I walked past that wall every single day, multiple times a day, for a month. Yet I never noticed it until the moment it was all over. I believe that’s because God knew that’s when I needed to see it. I needed to see that it all came full circle. That He is faithful to His word. That I could in fact, trust Christ.
Philippians 1:6 says And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion, at the day of Jesus Christ.
My daddy was a prodigal son. He was so scared that God wouldn’t want him. But he came running back to his father, and ultimately into the arms of Jesus. He started with God, and he ended with Him. For that I’m forever grateful, because I know that at the end of this life, I will get to see my daddy and hug him again. It wasn’t goodbye. It was drive safe.
In loving memory of my daddy,
Lynn Chaffin ❤️
12/19/1959 - 9/22/2024
Comments
Post a Comment