I had almost invariably gone home for Christmas (and my birthday) annually. (I was supposed to be born on Christmas.) There was the occasional exception. In the early 1990's Philip and his family lived in Manassas,VA, and invited me to visit for the holidays; Diane lived about 3 hours south near Newport News while Joe was on assignment in the Gulf Region. We had a 6-month-old baby niece Cathy I wanted to see, and Philip agreed to a sibling reunion. (Cathy would later tell me she used gift money to buy a camel beanie baby in honor of her daddy's service.)
Family reunions were harder to come by; Pete and Diane moved as part of military families. Chuck (Elaine) and Glenn (Sharon) moved as part of their jobs to Florida, New Jersey or Colorado. Philip moved to Illinois, Minnesota and Kansas. Ron (Vivian) moved to Missouri. And, of course, the families often were establishing their own traditions or visiting the in-laws. Eventually 3 siblings returned to Texas. Mom had also spoken of going on the road to alternately visit the siblings at Christmas if and when she and Dad retired. Since I have never married, I tended to visit the folks at Christmas more consistently.
There were principally two family reunions over the past decade: the folks' golden anniversary and in the spring of 2009 my maternal uncle's golden anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. There were a variety of job-related or budgetary reasons why I hadn't visited more recently. (For instance, my West Virgina gig started on my birthday.) My Mom kept inviting me for the holidays, and every once in a while she would hint that their next trip might be their last. I, of course, knew that Dad had experienced some issues. The last time I accompanied him to the base exchange (where Mom used to work), he had chronic knee issues and seemed to stop to rest at every other bench on the way to the entrance.
Maybe I was in a state of denial. But when I heard my Mom call 2 days earlier, moments after she had been escorted away from his bedside, crying we were losing him, it was a surreal experience. The hardest thing in the world is to hear your Mom cry and not be able to do anything about it. Vivian had just sent out a reassuring email, as he had just been transferred following successful back surgery to a rehabilitation center near Mom. Vivian in fact had just flown back to Missouri, although she said she somehow knew it would be the last time she would see Dad and had said her goodbye. Mom had just stepped out to grab a bite to eat after Dad had gone through what seemed to be a highly successful first therapy session; reportedly, all of a sudden, his blood pressure dropped through the floor. Septic shock. I still didn't quite get how mere hours after being checked out of the hospital, he suddenly had a raging infection.
It seemed that Dad stabilized by the end of my call to Mom, although he was still critical; it was clear from Mom that she was convinced all they had bought was a little more time. For some reason, I didn't get an earlier call from Mom, and Diane, not aware Mom had reached me, texted me and send an email. Diane is a registered nurse and knew how to keep emotions separate from her professional judgment; it was clear I needed to get down there as soon as I could if I wanted to say my goodbye.
I had a professional interview scheduled for Wednesday that I needed to reschedule. How many days to book a flight? I decided to take a one-way. But everything was booked going out of Pittsburgh, my nearest major airport on Tuesday. I then got a call Tuesday afternoon from Sharon; Dad was stable, but it wasn't looking good. I needed to get there ASAP. The earliest I could get to the target Texas airport was roughly noon, a multi-leg trip. I tried to get some sleep in the early evening; I needed to start for Pittsburgh just after midnight. When I got to the key Pittsburgh exit, I found troopers had blocked it off; I found myself driving towards downtown Pittsburgh with no obvious detour/turnaround. Nevertheless, I took a couple of lefts off the first loop exit and to my relief headed back to the loop.
It was a long plane ride with layovers in North Carolina and Dallas. No interim contact from friends and family. I had emailed my itinerary to Mom, Pete, and Sharon and knew someone would pick me up, but I wasn't sure who. There are a lot of things that float through one's mind: I remember as a toddler rushing to welcome Dad home from work; I remembered the one-on-one times we had together; the time he flew to BWI to see me through outpatient surgery; the times he proudly introduced his PhD son to his buddies at VFW and the American Legion. I also remembered our few arguments (for example, I was thinking of a place for lunch after we picked up my prescription and saw parking at the target was packed; I didn't want to wait for a table and asked him to move on, but he decided to stop at the green-light intersection and argue with me.) And I kept dwelling on the fact that I should have called and visited more often, and those opportunities were gone forever.
Sharon and Glenn were there to pick me up; they didn't ask about whether I was hungry, but it was clear they thought I needed to get to the hospital ASAP. The doctors had lowered his medication enough for him to gain consciousness that morning. His organs were beginning to shut down, and he had made it clear he did not want extraordinary means. He couldn't talk because he had tubes going down his throat.
It was hard for me to see him like that on a hospital bed; it reminded me of the time I visited Elaine after her childhood appendectomy. I felt so helpless, unsure of what to do or say. They adjusted Dad's meds, so he could regain consciousness. I initially joked that I knew he would say that I needed a haircut (in fact, I did); the first thing Dad would inevitably do on my visits home is drive me to a local barbershop (I paid, of course). I told him I wanted him to fight (God knows he did), I brought up times we spent together, told him I loved him. He recognized and saw me, even when I moved to the other side of the bed. A lot happened very fast, especially after they removed the ventilator tubing; Diane was telling Dad to take deep breaths. He wanted to talk but his throat was raw. His breaths became shallower. Mom started crying. I knew he had passed before the doctor, observing outside the room, called it.
My brother Philip, after he was engaged to Jodi, was worried how I would take the news that he had selected one of his friends Steve, instead of me, as his best man. In fact, Phil was barely in his teens when I left home for college, and we had never discussed the idea. At the time, he lived in Beaumont and I lived in Houston. We occasionally visited each other, but I had never even thought about being his best man; I was more annoyed that he thought he was hurting my feelings. In fact, I had always intended to ask my Dad to be my best man if and when I ever got married. (Ironically, I recently learned that Bruce Breeding, my best friend from UH, had chosen his dad as best man.) That will now never happen. I not only lost my Dad; I lost my best man.
