'Til The Cows Come Home

Go.

One year ago last night, I went to bed a perfectly content and happy man. It was a Sunday night. I was curled up, nice and warm and snug, in my old bed in my old room in my parents' house in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. I had rushed back to Cleveland after getting a phone call on Thursday night. It was my father, who had been unconscious in ICU for almost a month while he battled leukemia, septic shock, a heart valve infection, and a host of other complications. He was finally awake, and he was asking me to come home. It was the best phone call in the world. And that Sunday night, after spending the entire day with my father, who was swollen and yellow and could still barely speak more than a few words or move but whose eyes were so bright and whose smile was still the best sight on earth, I went to bed with the same smile on my face.

One year ago this morning, there was another phone call. I wasn't awake to hear the phone ring. But I was roused from my nice and warm and snug slumber by mother. The hospital was on the phone, she explained. Something had gone horribly wrong. My father had taken a turn for the worse, and suddenly we had a decision to make. After what felt like the longest drive of our lives, my mother, sister, brother, and sister-in-law arrived at the hospital. We talked to doctors. We looked to my father, who overnight had become an entirely changed person. He knew what he wanted. We made our decisions. We were told that once the life-sustaining treatments were discontinued, leaving him only with pain prevention and comfort measures, it wouldn't be long.

One year ago tomorrow, Halloween morning, I was exhausted. My brother and sister slept on the floor of the lounge. My mother did her best to sleep half in and half out of my father's bed, holding him for one more night. I was sore from spending the night on a hospital room chair - pretending to sleep but unable to take my eyes off of my father, because I thought as long as someone was looking it wouldn't happen. I wasn't just keeping watch over him, but over everyone. I knew I was about to inherit a massive responsibility in a role with expectations I'll never be able to live up to.

The family arrived. The room got too crowded. Then my father spoke for the last time, surprising all of us. One word.

Go.

We weren't sure what he meant until we realized he was asking us to leave. We thought he was worried we hadn't eaten in a day. We were half right. We didn't know until later what he really meant. Go - get breakfast or coffee or fresh air, you don't have to be gone long but just GO. He needed to do something very important and he couldn't do it in front of all of us. He needed to die, and he couldn't finish dying with all of us hawking over him.

We went.

Everyone else broke for the cafeteria. I took the first shift of going home and getting a shower and fresh clothes. But we weren't gone long before we were quickly called back to his room. It wasn't going to be long. They ran up from the cafeteria. I turned the car around and violated most traffic laws. I ran through the hospital, faster than I've ever run before. I made it just as he let go of his last breath.

One year ago tomorrow, at almost exactly this time, my father left.

It was finally over.

And I was happy for him.