Deathbed scenes and false alarms

Written by Gerard on Wednesday 24 June 2009

To say that the last few weeks have been stressful would be pushing the art of the euphemism to its absolute limits.

My father’s condition has deteriorated (he has cancer) since his second round of chemotherapy. Suddenly, I’ve been dealing with some overwhelming emotions - intense grief and a sadness that I’ve never felt before. As the prospect of him dying becomes ever more real, feelings and memories have been jumping out at me, helping to crystallize my father’s role in my life.

My nickname for my father for years has been Chib. In the last week, he’s come close to dying a couple of times. He’s even managed to fool the hospital staff, but would inevitably recover overnight as we all sat close by.

It suddenly became important to me to tell Chib how I felt about him before he died. After the first scare, I thought I’d missed my opportunity, so on the second scare, I wanted to make sure that I had a heart to heart with him. I got a text message during Rachel’s dance show, and rushed to the hospital before I even had a chance to see her perform.

After a frantic dash from Lisburn to Belfast, I arrived at the hospital and ran to the ward, whizzing past uncles and aunts who were clearly assembling as well. The room was packed with relatives, and I glanced at Chib lying on the bed looking failed with his breathing shallow. Before I could stop myself, tears were streaming down my eyes and I thought I’d missed my chance. I might have spoken there in front of everyone, but one of the aunts in the room realized that I wanted some time alone and kindly took everyone else out (except my mother).

The words came tumbling out of my mouth in what was probably a frantic stream: reminiscences of things we’d done together, gratitude for always being there for me, and that above all else, I loved him and would sorely miss him. When you suddenly start to sum up the life of a loved one, you realize how important they’ve been to you. And although we rarely (read: never) shared our feelings openly, it became important to me to share this with him before the end, before he became incapable of understanding the words…

In the end, it turned out to be a false alarm. He lasted out the night, and seemed to be recovering from the low ebb.

Though my father continued for another couple of days, I felt oddly at peace after my deathbed chat. Whether he heard me or not (the nurses say that hearing is the last thing to go), I felt that it was important to thank him before the end. Even if my regular presence at his bedside wasn’t a clue to my feelings, I hope that the words helped.

(Apologies for the change from present tense to past tense - I wrote this before my father died and finished it today).