Make up and other such things....

Somewhere in a trash can on the third floor of St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center lays the remains of my Saturday make up. It can be found on 27 tear stained Kleenex. (The good kind, with lotion of course.) It was never my intent to remove my make up in such a fashion, but life happens when you are making other plans.

On Saturday morning as I was putting on my make up, I reflected on the last 20 years of my life….and sat in awe at the things that have occurred, the people whose lives have changed me, the people whose lives I have changed, and all the experiences, and growth along the way. It is a story that if I had read it, surely it would be fiction.

December 13, 1989 I was crying my make up off for entirely different reasons. I had just finished Washington Seminar, which was the crowning jewel of my college experience. I was sad to leave a city that I had grown so fond of, and friends that had become so close. I returned home, not knowing that in a month’s time I would lose my mother to cancer, an event that would color the rest of my life, and impact me in ways I could not anticipate. An event that would force me to stretch and grow in new ways, an event that would set in motion the next 20 years of my life and prepare me for what was to come….

Over the course of that 20 years I would mature, I would grow, I would learn to love new people in new ways, and the life that existed for the first 22 years of my life would morph into a new life, one that often times I had difficulty recognizing, but eventually I would come to accept and find peace with, and continue to be at peace with as it evolved over the years. A new life that was rich and full, and new life where I learned to be comfortable in my own skin, a new life that also brought heartache and sorrow, with the promise of joy and peace. A new life that was mine.

With my make up done, and having waxed philosophical, I pressed forward with what I anticipated would be a challenging day, wondering why I bothered to even put my make up on, but realizing that by putting my make up on I was hoping that it would not come off, as opposed to resigning myself that it would.

I arrived at St. Alphonsus knowing my father’s health was critical. He was in ICU, fighting the systems in his body that were failing him. Deep in my heart I knew it was not a battle he would win…..and that he needed us to let him go, a realization we all knew.

Knowing my dad, we all knew that extra ordinary life saving measures would not be his wish. He would not want to stay trapped in body that had already betrayed him years ago. If it came to that point he would want to move on, a decision probably easier for him than for us.

We, being myself, Loretta, Jeron, Arianne, and Ciarran, gathered, all of us knowing what our cumulative decision would be. The medical staff removed the BiaPak that was forcing air down his lungs, allowing him to communicate more freely with us. Through his pain and struggling to breathe, he could hear us, he could respond to us, he could understand what we said and respond with a smile, or a blink of his eyes. Jeron said a few individual words, and then I spoke for us children as a whole, telling him what an incredible father he had been, how much we loved him and that he needed to tell mom what a good job he did raising us. With the mention of my mother his eyes opened widely. She was close, I knew it and he knew it, and everyone else in the room knew it. I thought of my mom often during the day, how she was waiting for him, how she would welcome him. Then I thought of my grandparents, his parents, and how excited they would be to see him and him to see them. I thought of the many others that were waiting for him. Then I thought of how much we would miss him in our lives. The emptiness that would be there. The feelings of loneliness and grief that would occupy that space in our hearts once filled by the moments of spending time with him. The change in our lives, that death inevitably brings. The close of one chapter, the opening of another.

After speaking collectively, we spoke individually and each had an opportunity to say good bye and tell him that we loved him. He in turn, although difficult, was able to tell us that he loved us. It was closure that none of us were able to have 20 years ago with our mother. Loretta got to express her love, tell him she forgave him for not keeping his promise of 30 years together, and kiss him good night. We then told stories and made him chuckle though struggling to breathe.

Finally it was time. Time to remove all artificial means of support, all medication, and just let nature take its course. Once the oxygen was turned off suddenly the room was quiet. I don’t think any of us realized how much noise the oxygen machine was making. But it was a good silence, a peaceful silence, a silence that gave all of us a moment or two to reflect in our own thoughts.

The morphine gave relief. Over the course of the next hour and a half he struggled, struggled for every breath. Dying is not easy, it’s a fight. The body instinctively wants to fight dying. Instinctively the body wants to live, even when every system is shutting down. He was hooked to machines that monitored his blood pressure, oxygen and heart rate. We all gathered around his bed. From my vantage point I could see the numbers of the machine. I could see the numbers drop as his body was finally giving in to what was occurring. His breathing was short breaths, and becoming more sporadic. The end was close. I called for the nurse. Eventually he stopped breathing and it took about a minute for his heart to flat line. We sat in pondered silence, each reflecting on our loss, his happy reunion, and what now lay ahead, both in the short term and the long term. But, ultimately thankful for the part that he played in our lives, the example that he was, but most of all grateful that he was our father and husband.