Last year, on August 24, my father Kermit took his last breath. It was a big one, if you believe my sister, who was the only witness to the event. A great gasp, a dramatic exit. Then stillness.
When his formidable body finally came to rest, it was covered in a pile of thin hospital blankets. I’d spent the entire previous night sitting in a chair next to Dad’s bed. The night nurse and I had prepared him. We’d cleaned his face and surgical dressings, shifted his arms and legs for comfort, and held vigil. We knew he was leaving—we’d unplugged the ventilator at 8:30 that evening—we just didn’t know when.
Dad didn’t hurry. Nor did he take his time. He just did it his way. As he always did.
The nurse and I shared stories well into the deep hours. She wanted to know what he was like. What he loved. I told long tales—weaving and bobbing my way through memories. He wasn’t conscious, but he was present. I tried to exaggerate only the bits he’d appreciate. The things that would make him laugh.
I already missed his laugh.
The ecstasy on his face was revelatory. I recognized the place inside me where inspiration should be…
In the morning, my sister arrived. After five days trading bedside shifts in this ICU, she’d gone back to the hotel the night before to catch up on a bit of desperately needed sleep. I wanted to stay with her that morning but gave in to my own exhaustion and headed for a nap.
I woke up a few hours later with a start to missed phone calls and text messages. “He’s gone. He’s gone. It was quick. I’m sorry. I tried to call you.”
He died of stubbornness, I’d later joke. By which I mean that he insisted on living alone in his little cabin in the woods despite the myriad hazards this presented to an elderly gentleman with questionable balance and even more questionable judgment. He was still taking trees down with his chainsaw and splitting rounds with his axe right up until the day he fell.
If Kermit was going to be living then, goddammit, he was going to live.
BUY ISSUE 001
