Before the movie was ever made, he told me this. I hate the fact that the movie was made. Or at least I hate that the movie was given the title that it was given. It cheapens the impact of the statement. It renders it derivative when it was original at its time of being spoken. Perhaps not original. Perhaps that is memory playing tricks or lack of knowledge coloring recollections. But it was not common.
My father was on a hospital bed very much like the one he died on. He was in a hospital room very much like the one he died in. He was in the hospital that he eventually died in. My mother was there. Sitting on the bed with him. Her left hand, or rather the nails of the fingers of her left hand, traced what must have been, by then, a decades long rotation through the hairline that almost reached the back of his neck.
A decision had been made to touch him like that, in that spot, at that speed, with that force, with that repetition. It was a decision reached perhaps verbally or perhaps not. It was a decision made by two friends and two partners and two lovers and two parents and two enemies and two spouses - all those things that apply to an old married couple of 27 years. It was a decision. Two consciousnesses focused on this and agreed - this offered comfort and pleasure in the binary. This was something they both enjoyed and they both decided that this was something that would be done.
The beauty, as I saw then and as I might be the only to see, was that the decision was not made that day or the days leading to that day. This comfort, this pleasure, this absent minded mingling of one to one was decided upon years and years ago - perhaps, probably, before the existence of its sole independent witness - me - on this day so long ago. My mother's hand played with the short hairs on the nape of my father's neck.
The window was open and cool air was blowing in softly. It would have been fall, was probably fall - spring time in south Georgia could be unbearably hot. But it could have been spring I suppose. My dad was leaned up in his hospital bed with my mother sitting beside him and me sitting at the foot of his bed. The air from outside smelled of pine trees. My mother was noticeable happy - obviously happy - for a moment obliviously happy. I smiled.
Years ago my father had told his doctor that he had to be left hope. An interesting request. To be left with hope. Knowing, at some point, that request devolves to "lie to me".
My mother told me once over burgers at Wendy's - Wendy's was close to the hospital - she told me, "Your daddy told me the other day, 'Mama, they are gonna start keeping things from me soon. You are gonna have to go out and ask them if you want to know more.'"
I shifted the last bite of my burger to my cheek and asked with the taste of mustard and ketchup and beef and onion cascading through the cavities of my skull, "What did you say?"
"I smiled," she said, "and I said, 'I'll listen to what they tell you.'" I saw her eyes grow wetter and recognized the trick I did to tighten the cords of my throat to bite down, to back down, tears and crying.
"They have been keeping things from him for months now."
I bit my burger. I chewed my burger. I swallowed my burger. I counted on the act of eating to mask the tightening of the cords in my neck.
I knew they had. I knew he was dying. I think (I almost typed, "I like to think...", but ) I think that he knew he was dying. But that conversation kinda disproves that. Think on that - the medical professionals were dancing around the truth. For us. For him.
Mrs. Page at church, when she eulogized him at the end of the year, the way she eulogized all members who died during the course of the year, described him as charming. He must have been. I found him so but that is not evidence. No. That is found in the nurses who told my mother before and after his passing (death) that they hoped / prayed / were thankful that they were not working when they called CODE on his room.
My sister-in-law acted through her sister to get us to address a living will. But she acted through me. I was the oldest. That was why. That had to by why. Right? It wasn't because I was the coldest. It was because I was the STRONGEST - ha! Sorry. Self deception only goes so far. But I was the one that took the form and listened through not - quite - Charlie Brown teacher - jazz horn - instructions. I was the one that led my family through the form. I wonder if they heard me as something just less or just more than a jazz horn trying to find syllables.
We completed the form. We signed the form. We were SERIOUS. There was DECORUM. There was also butterflies dripping with acid circling through stomachs.
The doctor came in and went over the form and the whole family nodded absently at the notions that we had just initialed and then signed and then dated. He walked us through each line by final final final
line.
They would not do CPR. They would not put him on an artificial heart. And we nodded. They would not do CPR. They would not put him on a respirator. And we nodded. They would not do CPR. They would not seek to sustain his life through artificial means. And we nodded. They would not do CPR. They would not do CPR. They would not do CPR. They would not do CPR. THEY WOULD NOT DO CPR! THEY WOULD NOT DO CPR! THEY WOULD NOT DO CPR! THEY WOULD NOT DO CPR!
"Um."
As the start of one of those sentences that you have to say, as the start of THE sentence you have to say (and at that time, it was THE sentence that had to be said) it was an admittedly poor start.
But that is the way I started it. "Um,"
I paused. It was not to gather my thoughts. It was a stalling tactic. I knew someone else would say what I wanted to say. I just needed to drop the "um" to stall the inevitable, morbid momentum to give them the breathing space to say the obvious. But the silence it did not echo. It, the silence, turned on me. Nobody said a word as doctor, nurses, sisters-in law, brothers, mother, and
father
turned
to look
at me.
"No CPR?"
The LOOK continued. I knew what had to be said. Didn't they know what had to be said? If ALL knew what HAD to be said, then just asking the question and pausing.
But no. They don't see it. I had to say what had to be said. I had to say it in front of him. A continuously shrinking part of me hates them all for their blank stares and their simplicity.
"I agree. No tubes or machines. No postponing the inevitable. But no CPR? To have the en...
To have," LOOK AT HIM, "to have you in pain and fear and to have them come to this room and do nothing? To have them watch? To have them safe behind this piece of paper with my name on it to watch with no responsibility to help? To leave you there frightened and alone? NO. Just no. They have to help. They have to come to you. They have to do what hands can do. They have to be here for you."
It made everyone just as uncomfortable as you think it did. I took my eyes off of his only long enough to find my mother's - she was watching him - she would hate me for this only to the extent that this caused him pain - she does not hate me - that brings a comfort.
I looked at my two brothers and neither met my gaze. If they had met my gaze that day, I might have found the courage to ask later what they were thinking, but, alas...
The typed up orders have a line drawn through them. The doctor's barely legible scribble is written above the orders with all of our signatures at the bottom of the page. It states that CPR shall be administered but that not other efforts shall be expended. These were the written rules of my father's passing from this world to the next.
But the air smelled of pine. My mother's nailed traced an all too familiar tattoo through the hairline of my father's neck. I sat at his feet and ran my finger down the scar that traced across most of his foot from when a chain saw had almost given him the nickname "Stumpie".
"Why are you ashamed of me?" I asked. The question was an evil, evil lie. I knew my father was dying. I knew the days were short. I knew that we had all taken steps to be sure he never knew how close the finish line was.
I watched his eyes grow large. Felt shame as they moistened. Watched as his jaw tightened and the cords in his throat tightened. I saw my mother freeze. No expression. Barely breathing. Her hand settled gently at the base of his neck. No one had yet held mine from that position in that way yet - I had no idea how comforting that was.
"I love you," he said.
I was ready for this. I knew this. I counted on this the same way I counted on oxygen to be in the next breath I inhaled - only I was more thankful for it.
"Love ain't pride. Why are you ashamed of me?"
"I love you. You have the whole future open to you. You have A BEAUTIFUL MIND. There is nothing that is beyond you if you will apply yourself. Don't be petty. Don't be small. Don't limit yourself to my horizons. Be bigger than that. You have a beautiful mind - don't be afraid of where it leads you. Be greater than what came before you. Don't be afraid. Don't be small."
"But if you don't do a damn thing else in life - I am proud of you."
I hugged him. He hugged me.
My mother smelled something rotten in Denmark.
"Why did you think we were ashamed of you?"
"Besides the obvious?" I deflected.
"Besides
The
Obvious."
She met my eyes without anger. There was not understanding there either. Legitimate confusion.
"I know you were never ashamed. I just wanted you to say you were proud of me. I wanted to hear it."
My parents were flabbergasted in the most honest attribution of the word.
I was satisfied and disgusted with myself at the same time.
As I grow older, as I find more and more things that I wonder how my father would have judged, I grow more satisfied and less and less disgusted.
A beautiful mind. A fantastic compliment. A daunting challenge. A horrible movie title.
Well. Maybe not horrible. Probably not a terribly manipulative title. That is a positive.
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