When My Father is Dying

Estrangement brings imagination to life.

My father is 84 now. I haven’t seen him for over 12 years. If you are estranged from a parent, sibling, or other primary relationship, maybe you do this too — imagine seeing them again in different circumstances.

…the Formica-topped table in the hospital cafeteria tilts when I move to grasp a now cool cup of tea. I’m too tired to find and fold a piece of cardboard to stuff under the table leg. My half hour break in the vigil I am keeping outside my father’s sick room is over.

The night nurse glances up as I take my seat on the bench outside his room. The complicated and criminal aspects of our relationship make me ambivalent about actually going into that room. Still, curiosity keeps me here. I don’t know what comes next.

Memories of my father swim in my head. I struggle with the paradox of a man who taught me to love words and stories, but who was also the incestuous thief of my childhood. Time has run out without a chink in our estrangement, just as it did when my mother died two years ago. His influence on my life and his approaching death are shadows sitting beside me. The seat’s cracked vinyl pinches my leg.

A familiar scene forms — my fourth-grade self at the kitchen table laboring over a book report on President William McKinley (assassinated in 1901). It is 10 p.m. My father sits beside me in his rolled-up shirtsleeves firing questions at me.

“Why is this sentence here? It’s more important — move it to the top. Is this the right verb? Think, think! What do you mean to say? Read it again, from the beginning…Stop! Right there — what’s missing — what’s the word for someone killed him?

I’m exhausted when, finally, the report is finished. This experience will echo in nearly every sentence my future self will write. My father taught me the importance of organized, clear writing, a lesson in beauty I will try to master as I grow older.

Images from my childhood — sleigh riding, playing in the park, and on the beach; discussing books and movies, visiting colleges, celebrating graduations, my wedding, and the births of my three children — are like calendar pages flipping through the celebrations that color in a life. My father is there. I believe he loves me.

When I reach forty, dissociated memories of sexual intimacy with my father began leaking through my unconscious walls. Dark pictures flash behind my eyes. My father teaching me the lollipop game. I am his special girl if I lick it (him), like a lollipop. Terrified and betrayed, I leave my body while another “me” comes forward to play the game. It progresses over time, as my father uses me to feel powerful, desired, and strong.

If I was the girl who played this game, who am I and what else did I do? Guilt (what kind of daughter thinks her father did this?) and shame (what kind of daughter does this? ) are my constant companions. Pain and rage make me frequently suicidal.

Can I love and hate my father without hating myself?

“Ow!” The vinyl bites me as I shift in my seat. I jump up, rubbing the back of my thigh and looking in the window of my father’s room. The cotton hospital gown gapes around his neck, his head shakes slightly with each breath.

“Why?” I whisper. “Why did you do it?”

I resist the urge to smash my head against the window glass and settle for pressing my forehead into it. When he is gone, I’ll be the one left with secrets I don’t want. Yes, I’m grown now, the abuse is over. I am a woman divided into parts — those who participated in the abuse and a host personality that is strangely disconnected from her feelings and her body. If I admit I am that little girl, what does that mean? Can I even tolerate myself?

They say abusers were often the abused. What happened to you to make you hurt me so? Could I ever be that cruel?

A nurse leaves the room, pausing at the door.

“His breathing is very labored. It won’t be long. Is there anyone you need to call?”

“I’d like to go in alone first,” I say, knowing I am not really alone. The little girl I was is with me right now.

The nurse pushes the door farther open and stands back so I can enter, my slow steps slide me toward him. The equipment lights throw shadows upon the floor, they slip across the foot of his bed, up to his hollow chest. Shadows, always shadows. My little girl and I know all about the dark.

I want to scream obscenities and spit in his face, pound my fists against his chest and crumble in tears on his shoulder . Rage duels with sadness. My stomach lurches propelling me forward. I hit the bedrail and the air seeps out of me; the little girl in my body knows so well how to freeze.

White stubble covers his face and drool pools in one corner of his mouth. This sick old man cannot charm or threaten or hurt me. My little girl and I still long for understanding even though there is no “why” that can make it alright.

They say abusers were often the abused. What happened to you to make you hurt me so? What about me — could I ever be that cruel?

“Dad….dad,” I say firmly, to test if he can hear me.

His breath skips, an eyelid flutters.

My eyes linger on the bed pillow propped next to him. How easy to just cover his face and press the pillow down. My hands ache with desire. My tongue sticks in my mouth.

A tiny snort and his eyes pop open, still impossibly green — the color my children inherited. He’s confused at first and then startles, recognizing me. I grit my teeth, exhaling decades of pent up fury. I’m the strong one now.

We lock eyes. It’s my choice. Will I become a criminal, a eulogist, or both?