Five years…Thoughts on Grief and Loss

Five is just a number, isn’t it?

Note: This is very different from my usual writings, and very personal. It’s also been very therapeutic, and I don’t think we as a society, especially men, talk honestly enough about the effect that grief has in our lives. These recollections have been my experience these past weeks.

May 3rd, 2016

“You need to come down here. Your father is moving to hospice tomorrow and your mother isn’t mentally well.”

I remember staring at my phone, thinking I had misheard the social worker.

My dad couldn’t be going to hospice. I knew he’d had a couple of setbacks with his chemotherapy and hadn’t been able to talk to me for a couple of weeks, but my mom kept saying he was getting stronger and would be leaving the hospital soon to go to a rehabilitation facility. It made sense, he would need to get his strength back so he could continue with his treatment for kidney cancer.

I didn’t know at the time that my mother was in deep denial, partly due to depression, partly due to her own undiagnosed health issues at that time that were affecting her mental state. I hadn’t been getting anything close to accurate information for months. And now dad was actively dying.

Endgame.

May 4th, 2016

I don’t remember the drive.

I do remember my arrival at the hospital.

I went up to dad’s floor and was met almost immediately by the hospital-assigned social worker. She recognized me somehow, literally grabbed my arm, and pulled me aside into the lounge.

“Hi Mark. I’m so glad you’re here…they will be moving your father in about 30 minutes and your mother doesn’t seem to understand what is happening.”

I couldn’t tell you what I said to her. I managed to placate her, took a deep breath, and went into dad’s room. Still hadn’t seen mom.

I’d last seen him in January of that year. He looked tired, but was still himself. I remember going to Perkins after visiting my grandma. I still have a photo from that visit with her; it’s one of the last good photos I have of grandma before dementia ate away who I was and what was happening in the real world, but honestly all I can see in that photo is dad. He looks so…normal.

The thing in the bed wasn’t dad. It was a skeleton with slightly yellow skin that somehow, horribly, had dad’s eyes.

Those of you who have watched someone begin to die know exactly what I mean.

I don’t remember what I said to him either. He was barely awake. I eventually made some hasty excuse about checking on mom and went to the lounge.

The social worker was gently explaining to mom what was about to happen. Mom saw me and used me to hold herself upright. No tears, but she was in full denial and shock. Heck, I was in shock myself, but mom had a thousand-yard stare.

The ambulance came for dad. He needed to be lifted out of the bed, I remember that. No strength to stand or even sit up on his own. The social worker suggested that mom and I get some food and then meet dad at the hospice in a couple of hours once he was settled.

May 5th, 2016

I spent more time taking care of errands with mom than I did seeing dad. His strength was very low and he was only awake for short periods. Mom was still buying him shirts. Denial is a heck of a drug.

I stayed up late into the night writing him a letter…all the things I knew that needed to be said but I’d never be able to say aloud. I remember my mother not giving me even a few minutes of peace while I was starting it, so I finished much of it after she’d finally fallen asleep.

May 6th, 2016

I’d already arranged with the hospice and dad to visit in the morning, and we knew it was likely to be for the last time. I had to go back to Minneapolis later that day because I was changing jobs; it was actually my last official day at my previous job, but I needed to return the equipment, ID, etc over the weekend. I was scheduled to start my new position on Monday, but it was fluid based on what was happening with dad. Turns out it didn’t much matter.

Dad was awake and could talk. In fact, he was able to write things down for me about finances, accounts, things that I needed to know because mom wouldn’t be able to handle them on her own. We watched tv…House Hunters. I kept my hand on his arm.

After a couple of hours, 11:30am rolled around. Dad was starting to fall asleep and the nurses needed to help him with a sponge bath and bathroom issues, so it was time for me to leave. I gave him the letter. I gave him a hug and a kiss, and I told him how proud I was to be his son. And then I sat in my car and sobbed before I drove away.

Dad went comatose the next day, never woke up again, and passed away quietly on May 11th, 2016 at 67 years of age, two days before what would have been my parents’ 44th wedding anniversary.

House Hunters makes me feel like vomiting to this day.

Five years today since that last conversation. I know when this time of year is approaching, because my mood changes. I become irritable and my emotions are far closer to the surface. But I’m used to it, and I can usually head it off. Still, this year has been tough.

Five years. What makes this more important than the other years in between? Five is just a number, after all.

I know it’s the arbitrary importance that we as humans place on anniversaries. Five, ten, twenty…we give them more importance than others. We celebrate a decade of marriage, or twenty years sober. The reality is that each day is really no more consequential than the one before or after it, but we need to categorize, to assign criticality to such things.

I know this. I know that five is just a number.

We expect to bury our parents. It doesn’t really matter, though.

It still hurts.

We know that five is just a number. It doesn’t really matter, though.

It still hurts.

But today I managed to not realize that 11:30am had come and gone until it was past noon. That must be progress, right?

Maybe ten years will be better.

Ten is just a number, after all.