FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY

I can’t believe that it’s already been five years since Daddy died. The day before, we watched the Super Bowl together, until halftime. It was the most animated he had been since he’d gone into the nursing home 10 days before. I took Lulu up to see him. He really wanted to see Heidi, his own dog, the one in the picture, but she was not sociable enough to be around a lot of strangers. I knew Lulu would behave and she did. Daddy seemed to get a charge out of her visit, running his arthritic hands through her thick black coat. We went outside, him in the wheelchair, and he wanted to hold her leash while I pushed him all the way around the nursing home. We made the circuit twice, talked to people we saw. Daddy wanted to show them Lulu. She was always a good girl. Then Wayne took her home, and I stayed to watch some of the Super Bowl with Daddy.

He always loved football, spent his entire weekend watching one game after the other during football season. Except for the Cowboys. He would not watch the Cowboys. He rooted for the Manning boys, no matter what team they played for. This was because of their father, Archie Manning, who had played for the Saints when we all lived in Mississippi. This was back when the Saints were a dismal team, and Archie was sacked time after time. I think Daddy felt sorry for him, and so when Archie’s sons came up in the NFL, they were who he threw his allegiance behind. Seems like one of their teams was in the Super Bowl that year, but I can’t be certain.  Denver maybe. I don’t really watch football, but was there to be with Daddy. I had a feeling he was near his end.

The next morning I came up to the nursing home and learned that one of the physical therapists had pretty much ordered Daddy to go eat breakfast in the diningroom instead of in his private room. She stopped me out in the hall and told me he was doing better. I disagreed, and I told her about my fears that the last fall might have caused a hematoma. He had fallen backwards on his head and it had blackened both eyes. He couldn’t walk without assistance after that fall. She said I should speak to the nurse when she arrived. 

I went in to see Daddy. He was sitting in the wheelchair, and as soon as he saw me, he asked me to help him get back in the bed. He said, “I feel terrible.” Daddy was not a complainer, so I wanted to know in what way did he feel bad, and he couldn’t really explain. He finally said his back was hurting. I helped him into the bed, and rubbed his back for a bit, but it wasn’t comfortable for him to lie on his side, so that ended shortly, and he fell asleep.

The nursing home had good wifi so I had brought my laptop and sat there while Daddy slept, Googling hematoma, Googling everything I thought applied to his condition. As he slept, his breathing got ragged and gasping. He would snore, then wake himself up gasping. He laid there with his mouth open, with what I call a death pall on his face. I recognized it from when Mother died.

When the nurse got in, I went down to her office and talked to her. She said she was going to call Daddy’s doctor to order a cat-scan. I felt better about things after that. And then the plumber called my cell. Daddy’s backyard was flooded from a broken pipe and they were coming, they told me. Could I meet them there? I went back to Daddy’s room, shook his shoulder to rouse him, and told him I had to leave to let the plumber in. I promised I would be back as soon as possible. He smiled, nodded. I kissed his cheek. Almost as soon as I got to Daddy’s house, before the plumbers arrived, I got another call. This time it was the nursing home telling me Daddy had died. I could not believe it. I still can’t believe how quickly it happened after I left. Ten minutes before I had been with him, and he had heard me, nodded, smiled. They said his heart stopped beating so it was listed as a heart attack, but Daddy was almost 89, had lots of ailments including renal failure. It could have been a number of things, I suppose.

I still miss him every single day. It isn’t easy to lose all the people who have your history, who share old memories, who know you about as well as anybody on the planet knows you, those few people who need no explanation when it comes to your past. Daddy and me--we were simpatico. Oh, there were times when we aggravated each other, especially in his last years. I’m sure I hovered too much, probably bossed him more than he wanted me to, worried over him when he wouldn’t answer his phone. He was easy to know, fun to be around, a jokester--often the funniest when he didn’t intend it. He was open-hearted and accepting and not at all an old crotchety stick in the mud.

My earliest memory involves my dad. I was running away from a peacock, terrified, running over an uneven grassy lawn with that peacock coming up behind me fast. I tripped and fell head over heels, but before the peacock got to me, Daddy swooped in and lifted me in his arms. I once told him about this memory. He said it happened at Knotts Berry Farm in California, and that I was about two and a half. He was my savior then and I felt that way about him for the rest of his life. When he died a light went out for me, and stayed out for quite a while. I felt like I had lost my North Star.

When he first went into the nursing home, his dog was left alone at his house and she was nervous, knew something was wrong but didn’t understand it. Why was her old man gone? So to keep her company, and to fill the quiet house with noise, I decided to turn on the television. The television was always on when Daddy was there so I thought she would find it comforting. I searched for the remote, found it under some newspapers on his chairside table, punched the ON button, and as the picture took hold, I realized it was tuned to the Playboy Channel. That was Daddy. His body was old but his mind never was. He never gave in or gave up--until he did. That was February 4, 2013. Five years ago today.

Onward....