Grey Monday

I got a close up look at a loon in the bay in its winter colors.  It was an incredibly graceful bird and dived smoothly into the water when I stopped to stare at it.  I did not see it come back up.  It was a  still grey day and not too cold.  I walked the bridge and back at lunch time.

Among my father’s personal effects was set of rosary beads that had been given to him by an Englishman who had found them on the battlefield during World War I. My dad had been billeted with an English couple before he was sent to France during the war. When he told the story of the English couple, he always spoke with amazement that the English who he had been taught to hate could be so good to him. They would take him once a week to a neighbors house for a bath, they having no bathtub of their own. My dad told them of his Catholic faith and the man, not being Catholic himself and having no real use for them, and knowing that my Dad would soon be in the war, he gave him the rosary beads. They stayed in touch for many years after that.

A very high tide just going out, a breeze from the east, some crows, ducks, walkers. The temperature is mild, the sky clear. In the bay are a couple of trawlers and a large red tugboat anchored off of Green Harbor. It probably towed the large barge with a crane into the harbor.

Notes on My Father’s Death

The night I left after being with him all day, Sunday the 6th of September, I held him in my arms for a minute and looked deep into his eyes. He was still completely mentally aware although his body was slipping away. We were not physically close in my memory, but there is a picture of me hanging on his pant leg as a little boy and one of him holding me when I was a baby so I know at one time we must have been. That embrace was an impulsive act on my part but it is a connection with him I will never forget. The next day he was just suffering and unable to talk clearly, then on Tuesday he died. Pam, Cynthia, Caty and the nurse were with him when he died.

A few more observations about that time:
I lost an awareness of him being old. It seemed that I was relating to his spirit rather than to one who was old, or sick or dying. And I saw him clearly, no different than as if he was still a boy or a young man. His essential being that I knew so well had no reflection of decay or death although it seemed that he was depressed and afraid at times.

There is nothing beautiful about death. He suffered, especially those last few days, pain, thirst, fear, loss of basic abilities to even reach out and control the events and circumstances around him. He began to see things that weren’t there, to reach out for things, groping, frustrated.

That Sunday before he died, Pam and I, Scotty, Paige, Corinne and Sophie all came up to see him. He was still able to get up and walk a little, he sat outside for a while, he could talk but his voice had become hoarse. The girls were very affectionate with him and I am sure those final goodbyes meant a lot to him. They meant a lot to me.

Two weeks later I am still processing everything. I do not think he was a Christian in the sense of it that I have, putting my faith in Christ, his deity, his death and resurrection. He prayed the rosary all his life, but would not attend church. But he was kind to my mother to the end of her life. And Jesus said that anyone who offered a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because they are believers would not lose his reward, and Paul says that the unbelieving spouse shall be saved by the believing spouse.