That Saturday Morning

The ICU is on a floor that gently curves along the south side of the hospital's second floor. The north wall of each room is about fifteen feet long and completely glass with sliding glass doors that must be over eight feet wide. Each room also has a curtain that can be pulled across the length of the room. I stepped outside the room. The door was slid open and the nurse had posted herself there at a rolling desk. Dad's body was lying there. It was now almost 8:30 a.m. At about 7:15 a.m. I had noticed the color in his face changing. Starting from the neck, it was blanching, and I recognized that this must be the sign that death was moving up his body. I knew he was gone then. He had no more color. He was no longer there. So many times during the evening and then again that morning, Sue and I had looked at him and commented on how ironic this was. He was dying exactly the same way our mother had died thirty one years ago, on a ventilator in a coma with dilated eyes and unable to speak to us. He was dying of the same cause: septic shock. It was eerie. It took me back those thirty one years. I had hoped I would never be in that situation again, that I would never have to watch another person die under those same circumstances. This was sad but I didn't feel robbed like I had when my mother had died. She was so young, 53. She hadn't seen a grandchild yet. She hadn't resolved so many things in her life. She had been devastated by her father's death two years before and had lost her way. He had been her rock, her strength, her confidante, and her rescuer. Without him she hadn't known how to reset the course of her life. But it was different with Dad. I hadn't been robbed. He was old. His body was breaking down. The only problem was that his mind wasn't deteriorating in step with his body. He was out of his pain and frustration. I still felt strange leaving him. I had an empty feeling. Was I abandoning him? Shouldn't I sit with him until they came to take him away? Did the nurse need me out of there because she had something she needed to do? A man came in and started taking the ventilation tube out of his throat. That did it. I was NOT going to watch that. I left.