“Dad, it’s Me Calling”

Please tell me now, what you couldn’t, then.

Note: The following is a response from a prompt generated in a publication that I no longer write for. I hope you enjoy it.

If a mysterious package containing a phone was delivered to me, along with this note…

You have one call to make and only one, to anybody in your past, dead or alive. Dial their number if you know it. Dial their name if you don’t. They will answer. Good luck.

…I believe that one precious call would be made to my father.

As this is such an intriguing challenge, I needed to ponder this for a while. Initially, I thought about calling my uncle, my mother’s only brother who was stricken with both lung and throat cancer, and when he died, told my mother, ”I’m not afraid.”

As this was so entirely unlike him, I wanted to know then, and still do, what emboldened him during the moments before he passed from this world.

And then, I thought about my father and knew in my heart of hearts that my solitary call would be to him, wherever he is. Anywhere, I hope, but in the hard ground underneath the plaque, he shares with my mom.

Anywhere but there.

He died five years ago (yesterday) from Stage 4 lung cancer, as did my mother two weeks later. My sister had taken them both into her home to care for them, but, when it was obvious that nothing more could be done and they were on the downside, our parents were admitted to hospice care: One room, two beds, side by side.

Those were tough days, playing witness to the decline of two very tough people. In fact, unbearable at times. But we do what we must. We see what we must so that nothing, or no one, is ever taken for granted.

My father was a very proud man. No one should have to endure the pain and suffering, both physical and emotional that he “sucked up” near the end of his life.

There was chemotherapy and other stopgap measures to keep him alive for as long as possible. One procedure in particular was particularly horrifying. To slow down the progression of a tumor in his brain, he had holes drilled into his head so that he could receive a direct shot of radiation to the affected area. He had to wear this huge, metal “headset” to keep his skull in place. I don’t know how else to describe it. I believe the procedure is called Gamma Knife Radiosurgery.

He was awake but sedated during the surgery and my sister was there as she was for all of the tough stuff. After the doctors finished, she took a picture of our Dad, with the metal contraption on his head, giving “two thumbs up.”

Now that’s courage, wouldn’t you agree?

Aside from the turmoil going on in the rest of his poor body, my father’s skin also took a hit: He’d always suffered from psoriasis, but, what ensued was much worse. His skin thinned out to such a degree, that in places, it turned a ghastly shade of dark purple and peeled off like an onion skin. The pain that must have caused him!

I remember that his arms were always swathed in ointment and bandages. There was much more, but you get the gist.

Why…why did he have to suffer so? Wasn’t cancer enough?

It doesn’t take long for people to give up the good fight once they come to the last stop in their journeys, which is hospice care. And my father was no exception.

Oh, things were alright for a time. A short time. But then, something horrible happened: Dad became incontinent and, as I wrote in another story, once the diapers came on, he truly lost his will to live.

He also lost his voice. Literally. He stopped speaking and took on an eerie thousand-yard stare that chilled me to my bones.

My sister and I tried to engage him in conversation, as did our mother, to no avail. Whenever I bent over his bed to tell him that I loved him — and once in a while, he would respond in kind, his voice barely a whisper — his gaze was fixed on a point somewhere over my head. Or over the rainbow. I’ll never know.

And that’s exactly what I would ask him if I had that one phone call to my father: “What did you see, Dad? Was it your beloved father, or brother, or even your mother, with whom you had a difficult relationship? Were they waiting for you? Waiting to help you make the transition into the light? Did you feel comfort or fear? Oh, how I hope it was the former…as I hope you know how much you were loved.”

If I had that phone in my hand right now, aside from the above, there is one final query I would pose before I let my father rest in peace:

“Dad, when it’s my time…will you be waiting for me? Will I see you?”

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

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